 And we are now recording. Okay, good afternoon everyone. And on the agenda today, let's kick us off with our vision and charge. And we'll talk about the town manager's goals as well for the year. Thanks Stephanie for sending that. So again, we're here to make sure that we're working cooperatively with the town and community. To raise awareness and move with the sense of urgency. And then we have some items from our car. Around planning and prioritizing cross sectional efforts and then recommending programs. For GHG goals and climate resilience find these are all part of FY 23 goals for. FY 22 calendar year 22 goals for the town manager. And then the new goals for the town manager. For the current calendar. We'll just highlight the ones that are. I don't know if all of you have seen it, but around climate action. It has a lot of things that we wanted to climate lens using climate lens when making budgeting, construction, repair, hiring, and other decisions. We have the CCA item here on the joint powers entity. We've got the waste hauler bylaw in as part of the town manager goals. And then there's got there's a lot of actions around our car. Completing the fleet vehicle inventories who've got the information covered. Obviously doing a GHG inventory this year. And then there's a heat pump program and see pace. It's part of the goals. And this is around implementation of a plan for both heat pump program and utilization of pace, completing the solar assessment. And then supporting the work of developing a solar bylaw, which has been working on. Completing a municipal building inventory of HVAC systems and timeline for electrification and then the dashboard. And it jives well with our pillars here and we can talk about whether these priorities need to change. And then the heat pump program made it to the town manager's goals. We got the solar bylaw and assessment that made it to the goals. We've got one element of transportation. And we got to start thinking about what exactly we want for transportation next year. Because we don't have defined goals other than inventory assessment. So Stella, we just need to keep an eye out for when we create town manager goals for next year. And we're going to see pace as well. That was part of town manager's goals. Any questions on the town manager goals and items that we might have significantly missed out on. And then in terms of our metrics, we have, I don't know what the participation is. I think the last week's participation was, I believe two people attending. And then education series at four. And then we're going to start for annual report and town manager goals this year. I'm starting to do it more proactively. And then the expense report, either semi-annual or on an annual basis. I believe Stephanie, you said the first week of August is when we'll have the first draft review with us. And then. Did we do an annual report last year? We did not. Why not? Couldn't we do something. You know, simple, just. Yeah. Our. Charter. At least. Goes through some of the basics. Steve. I just was. Thought we did last year, but I can't remember for sure. I just thought the same. But I can't remember either. I think I'm remembering the year before. It went, you know, started it, but it kind of. Went into January or February. I don't think we did. Sure. We should. Yeah. Is it too late at this point to. I mean. No, it's not too late. And if we don't do it, then we can't like compare. Years. You know, so. Yeah. No, I agree. We just. That. Has a question. I. Yes. Yeah. What is the right timing for an annual report? Yeah. What is the fiscal year or is it the calendar year? And what is the fiscal year? We have been doing it in the calendar year. I think we were trying to get it done by the end of. December to get it in in January. So, but, and I can't remember if someone was asked if they would. Cause Andrew, I think you even sort of threw it out there for someone to maybe draft something. My recollection, because you had done it before. So I thought you would brought it up and sort of posed like, would someone take the lead? So. That's my recollection of this year. And I thought we had done something, but again, I'm because I'm. Often. Providing information to Paul for his annual reports. So in my mind. Reporting has happened, but that doesn't mean we just use. You know, that for your part that. That report. And then put ours. Together. Yeah. If you want, I can. Go back and spend a little time looking at. Looking at that. Let's see. Should we think about doing this as part of our. Fiscal year instead of calendar year. We know where the funds are being used. Just aligns well with. Putting a report together. I'm just going to go back to that. I'm just going to go back to the end of the fiscal year instead of the calendar year. Just going forward. I mean, I'm just suggesting should we wait until the fiscal year ends to write the report? Because we know where the money is spent and we would have. Better analysis done. Well, there could, well. Laura's, Laura's weighing in that she thinks we should. Write something in the fall and. Laura, I appreciate your notes, but I don't know why it's enabled. I don't know why I'm going to have to double check on that. So Laura's comment was that we send the. 2021 report in February of 22. But things we discussed sending the report ahead of the budget guidelines and town manager goals that the council does. So things we should write something in the fall. And it should presumably cover. All of the stuff we've done in the last year, which is pretty substantial. I mean. Yeah. So I think we should make this an agenda item for a future meeting. Because I do think there's. There's a benefit to ecac submitting something to the town. Council. Ahead of these budget guidelines and town manager goals, which is our two opera. The two opportunities the town council has. I think we should also consider what makes the most sense for Stephanie in terms of when she's reporting out. Things so that she doesn't have to do it multiple times. So. Like. Whether it's the green communities reporting or whatever that you do, Stephanie. Like, is that happening on the agenda? I think we should consider what makes the most sense for Stephanie in terms of when she's reporting out. Things so that she doesn't have to do it multiple times. I think we should consider what makes the most sense for her to do it multiple times. Whether she's reporting or whatever that you do, Stephanie. Like, is that happening on a, on a. Fiscal year basis. And in which case I think it makes sense for us to move to a fiscal year timeline. And that would work well with. I think when these things are due to the council. Yeah. And when does the fiscal year end against Stephanie? Is that. June 30th. Okay. So just to sort of put things a little bit in perspective. Yeah. I mean, I think it was actually now it happens in November. It used to be December, but they moved it back a month. So that timing is kind of weird. And, and what I report back in green communities is sort of very specific to. That program. So it's not as comprehensive as you'd be looking for. Really the more comprehensive reporting. And like I mentioned, I think that's a good thing to do. I think that's kind of a good thing to do. So I think that, I think I would, I think I would provide to the town manager, both in his quarterly or monthly, whatever reporting that he does. To the town council. I sort of offer what's happening with sustainability for his reporting. So. And those happened. A little more regularly than just annually, but like annually, there's like the big, let's look at everything. So. You know, I can certainly. year. Yeah. So is the consensus then should we follow the fiscal year guideline to create a report and it aligns well with this action item when going forward we do want to send or discuss town manager's goals for the following year in August instead of later. And so if we the fiscal year ends in June we'll plan to have the report done in July and then have the discussions around what our town manager's goals need to be for the following calendar year. Is everyone good with that? The next one would be reflecting more than the fiscal year because we haven't reported since 2021 the fiscal year plus. Yeah it'll be 16 to 18 months or something we just have to call that out in the report. I'll just look back at what I reported on to. Okay. Just a point of order. Perhaps I got on a couple minutes late but I think it's my turn to take minutes but if somebody else was taking minutes that would be great. Yes sorry Dwayne, I forgot about that. Andre went last time. I'll look at the last meeting. I actually made a note to myself last meeting that I saw I was next so I was prepared and I got some of this down but I wouldn't mind a clarification of what the proposal is or informal proposal with regard to when we're writing the report. Yeah thanks Dwayne for taking notes and yeah my proposal here is to have the report completed at the end as it lines up with the fiscal year. So in July is when we complete the annual report and then the lead up to a discussion on town manager goals for the following calendar. Well that doesn't if you're trying to align it with Stephanie's work but not you know it's like the end of the quarter is when we put together that right but not always exactly. And I just heard end of the quarter you weren't very clear can you repeat that? My cat is taking over my mic. Yeah I don't see how the timing how that timing is any better. Why don't we figure this out after maybe some you know input from Stephanie at another meeting. Yeah it would give me an opportunity to look back Vasu and I think Laura had recommended that this be an agenda item for another meeting so because I think we could probably spend a lot of time on this right now which we have two presenters waiting so I think we should. Yeah okay that's fine give me a chance. Yeah we can take this discussion at the next meeting. All right and we don't have the minutes from the last meeting so we would have to post on that as well right Stephanie we'll just vote. I didn't mean to accept them. Okay perfect let's open it up to the public for cause. Okay if there's anyone in the public who would like to ask a question make a comment please electronically raise your hand to speak and I will unmute you. We have four members of the public currently but no one is raising their hand. Okay let's move on to the next topic and we have Adrienne and you have Adrienne right? Oh okay great take it away. Great I'm going to share my screen it's nice to see you all again I'm here to provide an update on the the assessment tool that we've been working on and also to provide you an update on the community outreach we have a lot going on and a really busy month ahead of us in terms of this project. So to start first with the assessment we've been working as a technical team within the town to develop a map based assessment of where solar could go in town and so we started kind of by filtering out where it would be allowable just based off current regulations and then we ranked the feasibility of the allowable area and I do really want to call out you know I know there's a lot of kind of different definitions of feasibility but we looked at that in terms of the potential to do something easily or conveniently so when we show the map you know if there's an area and you think oh right here it could be great you know it it could be you know there's different levels of effort and so we just sort of looked at kind of the relative ease of one area compared to another so it doesn't mean a definite yes or a definite no and then we characterize that land use the current land use of the areas. So our process started with overlaying a grid on the entire town and that gave us some really fine resolution about what's going on on the ground and then we excluded grid squares that were owned by the colleges and universities since they already have renewable targets and they've already started working towards those. We also then excluded grid areas where solar development is prohibited or would otherwise be really logistically infeasible then we did the ranking and we classified the remaining grid squares and so in our final report there'll be really a lot of detail about exactly each criteria but I kept this presentation somewhat high level. So in that first step we did our 30 foot by 30 foot grids this offered two benefits like I said the first it's really pretty fine grained detailed information about what's going on on the ground and it made the outcomes of our assessment a little bit more future through as we all know parcel boundaries can change and that's generally the other way to do this is looking at a parcel but parcels can be cut up they can be changed they could be combined versus you know these grids aren't really going to change in terms of that ownership or that total geometry and it allowed us to say kind of what's going on in this 900 foot square foot area instead of at a parcel again we might say oh are there wetlands on the parcel yes well do we keep that in or do we exclude it when wetlands could maybe just be a small corner of a parcel so we really felt that this was the best way to give us detailed information. Then as I said we excluded grid areas owned by the colleges that's pretty self-explanatory but then the other excluded areas where those excluded by regulation those are wetlands and streams the wetland protection act and the town wetland bylaw significantly discourage and in some areas prohibit wetland development for solar so those were removed from our assessment we also remove land that has some type of a deed restriction on it that prohibits development so that would be conservation land in town agricultural preservation areas the state forest on the southern edge of town and then there's some other miscellaneous conservation lands so that is based on recorded deed information and then the logistically unfeasible areas were roadways railroad lines and utility rights of way and at the end of the day this actually excluded almost two-thirds of town so there's about 6600 acres based on this assessment where solar could go so then within that area of where it could go we looked at the slope so how steep the land is um solar is more feasible on flatter land um we also looked at the aspect so which way is it facing again north you know would result in less electricity generation than south we looked at the capacity of the nearest three phase line which represents how much electricity the grid could take at any given location and then the distance for the nearest three phase line the longer the electricity needs to be run to get on the grid generally the more expensive it would be to develop so that's kind of where that that feasibility or that inconvenience comes in each of these factors was ranked individually from zero being low to 10 being high so you know flat flat land facing south really close to the grid where there's capacity that gets you know a 10 that's kind of a very feasible relatively easy area to build solar you know the steep slopes less feasible that would get a lower score so these scores were assigned individually for each of the four characteristics and then they were integrated into one final score and again that score ranges from zero to 10 and we wanted to be somewhat conservative we know that um this this committee will be looking at some estimate of solar capacity and solar generation um so that we you know we just kind of a conservative approach at each step so that the estimates didn't come in really astronomically high so when we did our scoring we kind of bias towards lower scores we made sites um you know we tried to account for for the challenge versus accounting for the ease and then at the end what we did is we we classified our remaining areas by the built or the unbuilt environment um so this is the map of Amherst the black areas are excluded so you'll see that um it's a pretty significant amount of town like I said about two-third um and then the remaining areas are our color coded here um between the open space the agriculture in the forest that's actually about 86 percent of town is considered unbuilt and about 14 percent of town um is considered built um so that's our our commercial and industrial and residential um so I'm going to pause here uh for question from this group about the assessment um as I said much more detail will be in the final report um but I'm happy to take any question at this point yes Steve this this looks great Adrienne and your explanation and the document is really clear when I look at that map that little thumbnail image it doesn't look two-thirds black to my eyes um that's just an observation the question I think I have um you're evaluating the feasibility um oftentimes reports will distinguish between the technical potential and the economic potential and it seems like you're getting at aspects at least of the economic potential through the ranking system like slope and distance from um from the grid but will you I guess are you going to develop work on the economic potential as a subset of the technical potential um no the economic potential is not not part of our charge okay yeah just looking at the the overall ease you know like you said that kind of combination the ranking um and how much area falls within each category uh so that that the town can make decisions about prioritizing um but but we're not specifically separating that out okay and then are you evaluating rooftop and parking lot potential at all as part of this yes okay so rooftop and um parking lot is included it's within that that built area but then it does get it will be broken out into the different capacity on each area type so those will be in some tables with the final reports yeah great um and then when the map goes up publicly is it going to be interactive are people going to be able to like zoom in to particular areas and are they going to be able to like change the rankings that you guys have used and play around to that they'll be it'll be um similar to I don't know if you've used the other GIS maps on town in terms of like the property map it'll be similar to that where they can they'll be you know property boundaries um you know they can change the background map they can zoom in and see in more detail but they they cannot change the data okay and then the final question there the the the smart the massachusetts smart regulations if a parcel if I understand it right if a parcel has more than 50 percent of its area covered with a bio map designation then the entire parcel is disqualified from the smart incentives does does your map include that aspect it does not include the bio map does not include the bio map how about priority habitat we did not include priority habitat either because it can make solar more challenging but unlike wetlands it's not unnecessarily um a boundary that would prohibit development um so you know you can depending on the existing habitat um it does require consultation with the state and permitting but um while you know wetlands have a pretty straightforward boundary priority habitat sometimes you can develop part of a parcel and conserve part of a parcel um there's different agreements that can be made uh you can put on solar but improve the habitat beneath the solar depending on the species so there are a lot of site specific dependencies related to the priority habitat um that run themselves being dealt with um on a more project specific basis well let me maybe dwayne can maybe i'm wrong but i thought that any parcel that had more than 50 percent of its area mapped as either bio map or priority habitat was excluded from smart program incentives so maybe it's not prevented but essentially it is prevented because almost no one is going to be able to build a solar field without the smart program incentives is that dwayne does that sound right or am i misinterpreting it um well you're right in terms of hard to build a solar project without the smart incentive that being said i don't know um definitively of whether uh your your suggestion that that 50 percent of a parcel would in those areas would um disqualify you that um i'm not doubting that but i don't know that definitively okay the source i'm using is from zahra from your office dwayne um let me let's see if i could what did i put that um if i could may i share the screen for just a moment to share a link that shows a statewide map that maps out the lands that are excluded from solar based on the priority habitat in the bio bio map project before you do that can i just jump in real quick sure um so the the point of this mapping is not it's not definitive it's not to say you absolutely can or cannot develop solar in these areas it's looking at what is potentially the the more feasible locations so it it's going to require people who are proposing to do a solar project they might look at this and think oh this is a you know potentially i could do this but it's going to require more investigation more analysis it's it's not the sort of feel and all so i think to adrian's point about the bio map it's just it's to say that it may or may not be feasible and again incentives may you know that gets to the sort of economic piece and it may not be feasible just economically but again it's going to require any solar development to still um this is just a place to start it it's just to say if the area is in black it's very unlikely you'll be able to put solar there but if it's in one of the you know other land use portions that are identified as not being in black then it means you just have to do some more analysis so i just wanted to bring that up because you know we didn't we didn't go down that road um because it wasn't a hardened vest right it's going to require more analysis well i guess yeah i guess that's my question it sure sounds to me like the smart programs exclude any parcel that has more than 50 of its area mapped as bio map to or priority habitat and if that's the case then we don't want to show lands and amours that potential are feasible for solar when in fact they are essentially not because of those regulations well in part because we didn't do this by parcel we did it by grid analysis well i know but if entire parcel is excluded from the smart program that should be reflected on the map that we're we're producing for amours but i guess my question would be whether um in this interactivity of the map whether there would be there would be a bio map and priority habitat gis layer that users could turn on and off to see how it impedes or overlaps with the non-excluded areas i think that's a good solution i'm just saying i think those should be counted as excluded areas if they are not already as part of the the work that the gza has done the the map well i guess if if you'd like i can share the screenshot that shows the address as well as a portion of the map i can do that now or i can do that later go first what's that okay go go for i think yes you're seeing it so the the background map is is here here in this box is the short url for it and the legend shows these areas that are highlighted in a bluish green i guess those are areas with the red pink outlines or parcels with 50 or more bio map to our priority habitat so i guess my suggestion then adrian is check out that map and check out the smart program and decide whether those parcels should be excluded based on the smart regulations that's my suggestion yeah i think it i think it definitely makes sense to include those layers in the interactive layer um you know i because this was not parcel based this was just the the area and we are looking at all types of solar by any kind of developer you know they may or may not use the smart program it might be rooftop um and so if their parcel has priority habitat but their house is outside the priority habitat you know they i would think that they could still put solar on their roof or their garage so we you know the i think they're great reference layers and certainly developers or people actively pursuing solar on their property should be able to easily reference that but i don't think that those parcels should be entirely excluded well i guess that's where i disagree if the smart program excludes the parcel now we're not talking about rooftop if it excludes a parcel from ground mount i think your map should our map is looking at everything okay i certainly hope that includes the bio map and priority habitat exclusions through the smart program if it doesn't then you'll be showing land that potentially could host ground mounted solar where in reality it cannot so a parcel can be excluded through that program just as a parcel could be excluded because it has a deed restriction on it but they were only creating one map with all of the ratings so we're not creating a ground mount map separate from a residential or a canopy Steve i think you know any any developer going through this process is going to have to go you know they're going to have to get in touch with um you know especially if there's sort of um any kind of conservation related issue they're going to have to meet with the wetlands administrator they're going to so i i think you know there's going to be but but this is not for developers right now the purpose of this map is to help the town and the town council to decide what kind of restrictions can we put on solar while still balancing the need for solar and if the map shows a lot more area in town that's potentially eligible for solar then is true then the town might sort of put more restrictions on land say oh there's plenty of land so we can restrict this or we could exclude that through town bylaw but if the map is not showing all of the restrictions from the state then that's going to be misleading so i think it's important to include parcels that are excluded because of the smart program okay i would push back steve that this is not specifically just for that purpose well it's certainly what that's the purpose this spring while the solar bylaw working group is working on the solar bylaw right that's while the town council is going to be considering whether to adopt it right exactly i mean so i think but there there it's a tool for the development of that but it was never meant to be guiding this this assessment is should not be specifically guiding the development of the solar bylaw and i would refer to i would look to dwayne to maybe jump in on this point um because i think you would have a more the ability to sort of articulate um the the purpose and sort of why we looked at it in the way that we did and created the sort of technical guidelines that we did well we we voted the ecac voted to recommend certain parts be included as this in this study and again if if a parcel was excluded by the smart program it should be registered on this map as not feasible for solar ground mount solar development i'll leave it at that yeah i think see make sure that case considered no i i think that makes total sense i mean dwayne what are your thoughts um yeah um um you know well well i'll mention my thoughts but then obviously it's also you know with whether this is something that um gza can do whether it fits into the uh methodologies and so forth and and the and the budget that we had to work with but um i i would agree with with um steven steve in in in that this is not just for developers this is probably going to be looked at more so by non-developers i think developers have their own um methods and maps and and and uh ways of going about doing these things they'll obviously make use of these this type of mapping but each developer has their own methods as well um i think to the extent that i would agree at least for the foreseeable future that solar development is driven by the smart program you're not really going to build certainly a ground mounted project of any scale uh without the smart program um and i think uh in you know uh in my mind it would be helpful to be able to show these areas that are excluded maybe it's a little bit different of a category of exclusion because it's not because of physical properties it's because of the incentive program um and the rules associated with that uh but that um i i think it would be helpful uh to show those uh again it's it's difficult because uh we're looking at it in 30 feet by 30 feet grids and you don't know whether that 30 feet by 30 feet grid is within a parcel that's 50 percent uh covered by biomap uh or priority habitat but there may be some methodology to do that um and so uh i i would tend to agree and it would be a bit of an oversight and perhaps looking at the other areas or prohibitions that we put forward in the mapping so far but um this would seem to be a pretty relevant one for um for the purpose here so again i would i would you know ask Stephanie and Andrea if this is uh how big of a lift this might be and and whether you would push back i defer to Adrienne and um in terms of the how much of a lift this would be and i you know and again we have a budget we have a timeline so i'm going to refer defer to Adrienne well i think um you know i i can't speak to the the level of effort right now off the cuff to add this but we had been tasked with developing this map um based on the feasibility for use by the town for use to develop um capacity estimates but also for use by the general public across um land uses and so you know we were not we were not tasked to develop this in line with the smart program we were tasked to develop this um you know kind of based on largely unchanging characteristics of the land which is why we selected um the criteria that we did um as as the committee so you know i think we you know wetlands the exact margins may change but where they are doesn't change um priority habitat does change changes every couple of years um our areas more rare species are still the same largely yes but the the edges and the boundaries do get adjusted so um i think that if we were developing this in line with the smart program that's a different task than was laid out before us and then we executed on um i mean i guess i do wonder whether whether um you know basically the map that you had presented to us just just now with regard to the excluded areas and so forth and then the non-excluded areas but then just a the layer that steve had put forward that shows what would be excluded under the biomap and priority areas per smart regulations as uh an overlay uh that can uh then some of that's going to cover cover over the already excluded areas and some of it will bleed into the areas that are non-excluded um and if if uh if that i i don't know gis certainly as well but if that's a fairly um lower effort route um to just be able to have a map that shows um exactly what you had and then another map on the side of that that says and here's the the map with an overlay of the biomap of the excluded areas per the smart program for biomap and priority habitat uh and the priority habitat layers could be in the map so yeah they could be turned on and yeah and and in the reports while looking at this and that you know that would allow a good given property owner to see it okay um we're running out of time i want to be conscious of time and i know kathy needs to leave at 540 so jesse and lori real quick any comments i just really quickly when you someone does zoom in on this map and they get to somewhere where there's a rooftop that's you know maybe there's 500 square feet you know are you gonna what happens when there's a perfect place for solar on a roof but it's kind of in three different 30 by 30 grids just i'm just curious like how do you handle that type of thing yes so that was um that's looked at when it when yeah when we zoom in it's kind of whichever of the land uses is the most of that um grid so um when you when you zoom in the pixels might look a little you know a little sketched to the left or right because it picks that the grid can only be one thing but a grid square picks up the room um and so when you zoom in you would see kind of the aerial behind it you see the room part of its classified that's similar to how other land use classifications um like the national resource land conservation does that they do a grid as well a larger grid but that's how that's how it's looked at lori i don't have much to add i just wanted to say that i agree that in some way this um uh this this i lost the word already the second map the map of the smart program map should somehow be included adrian when's your next update to us uh i don't know that the next update is planned this was um a presentation of um what we were considering the final draft of the project um to be presented so if um you know we may have to circle back with the technical team which includes dwayne okay but adrian the plan for now is having the layer right of the bio map yeah on the town website you'll be able to map and there'll be layers on the map that you can turn on and off just like um you know the town zoning wire yep yep okay thank you and thanks for your time um i have sorry i have an update on the community outreach but this part's very quick adrian i'm just wondering would you just given kathy's time which i was not aware of would we be able to hold that would you be able to sort of hang in there for a bit and um hold this part of your presentation till after kathy is able to give her some sorry we just um we didn't realize she had a time crunch okay thanks kathy and kathy i'll turn it over to you for the school building hi i apologize i have another zoom meeting starting at six and they just asked me to be there by 545 so that's why i sent you that note um i am delighted to be here and um laura invited me and i prepared a few charts to just focus on the school and i believe laura has information then to share with you because we're looking to you all to take a look at what we've done in terms of the energy design of the school to provide some additional information that we haven't um done so far so have if i can um did do you have my slides because for some reason i couldn't get into your zoom meeting my normal way i do um i can share them that'd be great just give me one moment i kept saying exit the meeting you're in and i wasn't in a meeting so i went in i'm coming in through the browser in the sky which is an odd way to come in hey kathy hi yes just so many when you say we can you say just who are you talking about the building committee the town counselor like who's we when you say we okay let me let me start a little slower now that my slide is up okay i am a town counselor and i'm chair of the elementary school building committee and we are at a point where we've just submitted the schematic design for the school so we are now waiting the for the grant authority which is the massachusetts skill school building authority to officially sign off on it we've picked a site for the school we've picked a design for the school a location um it's a three-story school and we've picked an energy system um the school has to meet the town's net zero bylaw which means it's all electric and it has on-site photovoltaic panels on the roof and on the parking lot that will generate enough renewable energy to offset the electricity use by the school so we've had modeling done for us on the massing of the building the daylight in the building on its likely kilowatt hours of electricity given its insulation and a lot of other features so the we the the we is a very large we a design firm named denisco design are our designers and they also have thompson thomasetti as energy consultants that have done the modeling for them and then we have a 13 person committee and if you go to the next slide stephanie i think i've got that on it i hope if i can i can advance it now yeah so so denisco design architects are the design firm but underneath them are a series of consultants so both on uh ground water environmental consultants on what goes underneath the school the foundation of the school and this is the core what the project is um the school will be replacing the fort river and wildwood elementary schools there's a scheduled move of the sixth grade up to the middle school which means this school as well as crocker farm or one of the other elementary schools will be grades k through five we selected the fort river site as the place for the new school it will be three floors all electric geothermal with the town owned pv renewable on site right now the timeline has the big the big date looming is the may 2nd vote um the school is expensive and we don't have enough internal revenues resources to build it just out of savings um so we are asking really asking voters to do a debt exclusion which is basically an increase in property taxes to finance the town share of the school um and you you see here a list of who was on the building committee um that is the full list and there are people in various functions we had a subcommittee that met on the net zero on sustainability design next slide so some just basic facts about the school in terms of what we think we're bringing to the community the entire design of the classrooms and the layout was driven by the education program with a lot of input from the teachers on how things would be laid out there was a real emphasis on outdoor learning as well as play and the three store floor layout i'm telling you more than you need to know as a committee right now but this is an overview the three four layout is going to have two grades per floor and the way the floor plans work is fourth and fifth grade would be on the top floor they will be across the aisle from each other with a shared project space so the teachers are excited about the opportunity um for shared learning there was a real emphasis on bringing daylight into the classrooms um with evidence that it improves learning not to mention um it lowers the use of electric light bulbs to light the spaces uh we are adhering to the net zero bylaw and part of what we were doing was really getting the energy efficiency way down an eui of 25 or less because that qualifies for ever sources were built uh rebates and incentives um if we build with geothermal so they want evidence that we're going to meet that and this is the 1.6 million is both construction one the school is built we get the money and then we get another 200 000 if we hit the energy target we compared to the existing schools fort river has oil and wildwood has gas we will be generating at least 250 000 a year in operating cost savings if we completely close the two schools that's not the only savings there's operating costs beyond that but that's just assuming those schools aren't running anymore and laura got from me how much oil is used how much gas is used so she could talk about um greenhouse gas and carbon footprint um i think that is all i want to say on this other than um i have a longer set and anyone who wants to come to the community sessions i can send you that schedule as well as a link i'm going into some of these points on how much do we save by avoiding repairs um the two schools that we're closing are poorly insulated as an understatement they're not insulated they really are energy sieves right now as well as not being up to code on wiring on plumbing on adas accessibility and a series of other major pieces and the oil the various internal h-back systems are in the state of collapse we uh the kind wording about them as their vintage um which means for some of them the parts are not available anymore so we're expecting a a facility grant for the whole project the site and the project of 43 million dollars and it will be a community use um next slide stefanie so on this slide i can't use my pointer very easily but one of the advantages of the um proposed site is you see this small dotted line north of um this the layout of the school that's where the existing school sits and the new school can be built while the existing school is occupied yes thank you well and it's more than a hundred feet away so we can set up a protective um fence all around the construction site if you go that's a new loop that's down on the south side where the buses and vans will come in and out and the cars will come in north but stefanie just south of that is where the geothermal wells are going to be and they can put them down and then cover it up and build this new new loop coming in so the wells will be the wells and the site work will be some of the first um part of the construction project they'll be put in over the summer so the students in the classroom which are pretty far north away won't be subject to that noise but they will be able to see the school being built you know so um during one of the community forums they said will they be able to look in and so the design firm said we can probably do a burl up little thing you can look you know lift a flap and look in look inside look inside to see what's going on in there and she actually said the person who asked that i want to come and see this the school is has got a north south orientation um the little kink in it it's got a little twist and you're seeing the bottom floor of the site that first where you see pink and yellow those are the community spaces that's a gym and that's a cafeteria and above that will be the library that can all be walled off from the classroom so it's got a lot of safety features but the big thing we were focused on in terms of locating the school with was a north south so the classrooms where they're facing and where the solar panels will be on the roof they'll be on the roof of the school and also on the roof there'll be canopies over the parking lot and the town will own these we get all the energy it's a full energy offset next slide and anyone can interrupt me if i'm rattling on too much so this was the modeling the result of the modeling that was done and right in the middle of the summer when Thornton Thomas said he was giving of this information ever source dramatically increased they call them um what did they call them their uh adders they call them adders i call them incentives i just think of it as money so for for for ground source heat pumps the amount of money they're giving shrunk the cost difference between air source piece bumps so much that the the much higher system suddenly looked like a no-brainer to us because of the thermal comfort in the building the thinner the walls don't have to be as thick because of the way the system is ducted will be and they're chilled beams in the structure and so that incentive the pure construction incentive you can see 200 000 and another 1.2 a little almost 1.3 million we will get when the school opens so that is just if if they agree that we've got um an eui of 25 or less because of we've designed so they're getting all the specs on the insulation of the building the orientation of the building the daylighting and then if we hit our target a year later we get the 163 000 so that's the post occupancy they'll come back in um a year later and just so everyone knows we had to give them information on this on uh after school use so will this be used after hours will it be used in the summer so we had to give them some sense of what when the modelers had to know it as well you know how how many hours would this building be operated and I don't have to having just heard the level of technical expertise that you have on this committee you know a lot of this can be in the basic design of the building but users are going to matter the way we use the building will matter on how much um we use every day so um if you go to the next slide Stephanie or I can just say this too that one of the schools um this is one more piece before I get to the last piece of this there are new federal credits and it's um it's hard to over emphasize how much this is a game changer the IRS with the IRA the inflation reduction act has a provision that formally tax exempt entities like towns and schools um or nonprofits that don't pay taxes will the first time be able to get an up to 30% credit and they call it a direct payment because you can't get a credit against your taxes if you're not paying taxes so what we don't know yet is 30% of what will it be the whole PV system will it be the whole GSP system but this computation says if we applied it on the full cost of the ground source heat pumps and the solar um what the credits would do but in this case I'm just showing the ground source we were asked by the community with the HVAC system we have how much more does it cost than a conventional system so the designers gave us what a conventional system would have cost with gas which would Fort Rivers on a natural it has gas now and that was around 8.3 million and the combination of the ever source incentives and the tax credits basically end up saying that will either be at an equal or will be less than the other system would have been because of these federal credits and this is real money to the town this as as we understand it you know it's the year after the building opens it's like your house you put solar panels up and this is not counting up to 30% for solar panels so next slide and then I think I am finished except for my timeline so these are the various features of it that are related to sustainability as well as net energy they're going to be low flow toilets the water consumption is going to be held down the way the daily is arranged reduces electric use I was in a school that Dinesco has designed in Lexington during the daytime in the gym and there were no lights on in the gym and when I went into the Fort River and wild with gyms there were no windows in those gyms so it didn't matter how much sunlight there was there are there are solar there's on the south side of the school they put up some window shades so you won't get glare you know to to hold it down the HVAC system that uses ground source is extremely quiet and again I don't know enough technology wise but we saw two schools on a over 100 degree day and the first one was more conventional and when we were in one part we were freezing and another car we were hot when we cut into the other one that was the system was ground source there is there was no notable change as we walked around the school I mean and and it was amazingly quiet I think one of the exciting things is this is a learning lab for our kids not just the town there was a there's a wonderful film that a school in northern Virginia produced after the school opened which has kids parents and teachers talking about the school and one of the moms said my child keeps running around the house unplugging things and then he comes home and tells us how the school did today but but but this the it was an elementary school the teachers built some things into their curriculum about energy and about environment so I am the last one if you click to it Stephanie I think is the timeline yeah so this is the basic the school is if if the residents vote it's on a schedule to open in 2026 and there's some more details on this timeline but I'm going to stop there because I want to make sure you hear from Laura because we have not done the carbon footprint or greenhouse gas the designer was willing to do some of that but I gave Laura got from the designer but actually from the school literally how many gallons of oil do we use and how many terms of gas do we use so she was able to compute current schools versus this school and she has the information all of you have pulled together on greenhouse gas and targets for all of Amherst so I will stop there but happy to take any questions and you can take my chart set down Kathy what question what pushback if any are you hearing from the community I think the I think the big pushback will be how much is my tax going up there is nobody the the reaction and when I'm not showing you and I do I will send the community schedule if you haven't seen it the design team did a virtual tour of the building and it's gorgeous so I've shown you some not pretty you know the tour around walking around the outside of the building then what happens when you walk inside the building the reaction to teachers has been they'll have a quiet space to teach in as well as flexible program areas there's a design with these project areas and there's an integrated special needs program throughout the floors so there's been a very positive response to what has been designed and even the three floor design I thought people might say what three three-story school a couple who said well the fourth and fifth graders get to beat the privilege of being on the top they'll be really excited and and people talked about growing up in schools that were like that so we have so the the big thing is that it's a 98 million dollar total cost 43 million we hope from the facility grant and so the town is on has to find the way to pay for the other 55 million and some of that will be these tax incentives and the ever source but it will be a it has to be we don't have enough internal money to do this without going out to the taxpayers thank you Steve what's the size of the the pv system that's planned on the rooftop and parking lots do you happen to know and kw uh I should have that in another slide um I can get that back to you it's it's uh Laura may have it um I do have it so it's just a question of me pulling it up and this is where you hit I get while while I'm searching I can get you um because it's in multiple pieces yeah keep keep asking yeah okay the only one thing I wanted to say was do your best to allow the school kids to tour the building as it's being constructed yep we did that when we were building the Kern Center at Hampshire campus and that was just fascinating to watch it go up and and it made the workers more proud of what they were doing they were to show it off while they were building it that was really really neat that's great um given that Kathy needs to leave is anybody have else have questions for her or else I can just go through the calc I did okay um oh yeah go ahead jesse this is great and thank you this is really helpful for us is there are you asking for anything like is there anything oh why am I why am I I came to you because I would love it um at one point uh at one point Stephanie and I think Laura a few other people attended one of our net zero meetings and said when we got to this stage you all might be able to help to put out a lay person's uh piece on this is a great idea for kids and this is a great idea for the town from the perspective of climate action um and it I can draft a piece like that but since I am not one of the people that is known for having come up with the net zero bylaw or I've never designed a building or built a building or measured a greenhouse gas so I think something simple coming out so when when when Laura offered to do this calculation um you know again if if something were drafted I'd be glad to be a co-author if you wanted to make sure you've described the building right but so the ask would be something that um to the climate action community talks about this school um and again and and not on a technical level so something some you know when I see GS uh greenhouse gas protection or whatever the acronyms get rid of the acronyms and just tell people what it is you know clean clean air quiet building thermal comfort whatever um you know on this so I think it would be great if um at whatever level you could produce that if you produce it and put a yes we all agree you know and I will send you to ask it's on the kilowatt hours you know I have a memory of a number but instead of saying it and being wrong I will get it too because I had to look at the um it's it's under there was a certain federal credit you didn't get as much if you were a very large system we were under the system on on PV um and so I'm I'm remembering we have an exact estimate and oh I know I can divide it by I can divide it by the annual cost if we had to pay for but anyway I'll get it to you right after the meeting um and Kathy you needed by me second I assume right or well you know we needed before whatever yes whatever you would put out in terms of we calculated based on this I can quickly put into a fact sheet and someone else um I am limited as a counselor from using council time my council computer to promote this I can spend as much time on this as I want to as long as I switch to my other computer and so I I can't say oh my gosh this is the best thing we could imagine it is will be the town's first net zero public building um so anything you can put out that then could be turned into something simple for other people I mean people want to know what is a net zero school um you know what why would we want to have one of those um so those are the kinds of questions we're doing in FAQs so sooner better than later um but uh because it's it will help people understand that this is an investment with a return to it I'm an economist and it's hard for me to avoid using those words but I see a real return both in a much better school for our kids and a place to learn in a climate return for us it's a community resource we're re reconstituting the fields and their youth their big community fields and uh stormwater drainage there's some environmental there's some pay up paths um I think there's an amazing opportunity to teach about uh flora fauna and everything on this site um so just trying to think about what it means to have an elementary school that is embracing all of that uh would be great thank you for all your work on it Kathy it's really been an amazing process to watch you shepherd it through and I know mother's upfront is very excited to see this first zero energy building actually well you know and we you know and I I will leave you as a parting thing but I've gotten so enthusiastic about the actual everything about that um one of the people said are there also educational benefits for the kids you know and I go well yeah the entire school is designed around the children you know and teaching and programs um but they will also be inhabiting a building that will have all sorts of features I mean I was just told the other day that the wiring in fort river in wildwood presumably fort river also is so old it won't support modern wi-fi systems um and they can't go up through the ceiling to rewire it because there's asbestos in the ceiling and they would have to do 1.6 million dollars of hazmat removal so what they've done if you'd go into wildwood they've run little conduits along the wall so if they need a new plug some you know so they're doing wire they're doing retrofitting because they can't get in and just rewire it so it needs it needs our rough estimate um is in the 70 to 80 million dollars worth of it of um between HVAC system ceiling insulation plumbing electrical wiring um its systems are pretty shot and it doesn't have much daylight in a lot of the spaces so so I'm I'm going to leave you with that with strong educational benefits but have Laura walk you through either now or at your next meeting and the number she's trying to generate will be one I will immediately put in um uh uh frequently asked questions back sheet Laura so thank you thanks bye everyone thanks Kathy yeah so um I can share my screen here I think what I would uh Laura Stephanie had a question so oh sorry sorry I'm just I'm thinking about the fact that we had to and I know this is a little disjointed but that we had to interrupt Adrienne yeah I know I think we should just because she's sitting and waiting if you don't mind Laura thanks sorry let's do that yeah thanks Adrienne for waiting of course very interesting okay so yeah I just wanted to update you all on the outreach plan um March is going to be a busy month so you've all seen this graphic before and you know it's the same process um that was used in developing the car kind of moving from informing through consulting and involving the community so in terms of informing of the project going live in the next couple days you know we're going to have the project website um a draft is live now but we're not we're not getting the word out there yet because we're just tweaking a couple items on it still um we're going to be we've been working closely with the Amherst um Director of Communication to get press release together send out you know um digital flyers to community groups um we're also going to be sending out um postcards to residences and um in town social media will be updated and then flyers will be um both physical flyers will be posted at at certain public locations and apartment complexes and then also digital flyers will be going up to the town network um and so that's about 300 employees and then they also share that information if they um support some type of volunteer board so um I don't think you know you haven't seen a lot yet about this public outreach but it's coming very soon and then I think you're going to be seeing it um kind of all over the place um we are going to have a virtual information in March 13th so that's going to be on the community calendar soon and that will be a presentation about the project in general um some brief history on on on you guys on the solar bylaw working group kind of what the town is doing kind of broadly why we're looking at solar um and then information about how to take the survey how to participate and how to how to get your opinion registered um and the in your meeting packet are the slides for that presentation um which will have some polling um involved so there will be um some audience participation by answering questions that will update um live on the slides in terms of moving into consulting um the community we are going to have content on engage Amherst um and that's going to have interaction again so people can talk to each other they can talk to us you know and we will be able to capture that information and download it included in the report at the end um and then that survey that um we worked on together so that survey will be available um it has been translated and it will be available in English, Spanish, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese um and at that um the public need in the meeting on the virtual meeting there will also be um live interpretation uh with them we're going to have two community workshops so those are going to be in the Woodbury room at the Jones library um on Saturday March 18th and on Thursday March 23rd uh so those those two workshops they're really going to be like an open house drop-in workshop so there'll be interactive activities for people to do but we really geared this to make it easy for people to participate they can come in for five minutes and do one activity and still get their opinion um you know kind of documented and heard if they're shy you know it doesn't have to be in front of a big group um we're trying to make it you know really uh easy entry for people to come and participate that's our that's our whole goal um we are going to have some language translation available there as well um along with children's activities again just want to be inclusive and want people to be able to swing by the library bring their kids not worry about childcare um you know and kind of take part in this effort so we're going to have a qr code on just about everything um as I said our website is kind of draft live so we are finalizing it um and that it will be up in the next day or two along with the full full media blitz um ahead of that first workshop so that is the plan thing yeah great adrian good good to see um all this in place and about to move forward I just had a quick question on the two public meetings in the library are they basically going to be duplicate duplicates of each other um so people can come to one or the other they're different times obviously or they're or they're different formats or or content they are the same meeting so they'll be the same activities and um yeah that we wanted to make it easy for people to be heard so same activities same information both meetings so you're not going to miss out on one versus the other perfect definitely yeah I just wanted to mention that there'll also be refreshments available so there'll be some food for people as well um everything is in the one room so um you know the the children's activities will be in the same uh room as the actual um table stations where people can go and and sort of engage in the effort and the idea is that it's going to be a fun interactive um session and so people can move at their own pace they can also do as much they can do it anonymously if they want they don't have to be um we want to make sure it's a safe space for people so um people can have different levels of literacy it's a very very um equitable approach to engaging people and getting their opinions and input on the on this whole process yes Steve just a question on the date of the presentation is that March 8th or 13th it's March 13th um the draft slides that you had in your meeting packet um were March 8th but um it we've moved it to March 13th just for um easier facilitation of getting okay it says March 8th on the website you just referenced right that's one of the tweaks that's why it's draft website thank you okay uh so no more questions but agent thank you for hanging around I apologize for the shift in the agenda here thank you thanks Laura back to you okay great um so I think there are um um in my mind two things that we could do um thing one is just to have some numbers available and talking points available that we can give to Kathy to put on um the fact sheets that she was describing the other thing I think we could do if we're willing is we could write a um op-ed from ecac to the paper just noting not asking people to vote one way or the other but noting that this building does help support the climate goals and ambitions of the town um so I did share in the packet a excel document that um as I was telling Kathy I was like I think our group will want to know all the numbers and then we can take all the numbers and turn them into something that is more understandable to the general public um so I just wanted to be fully transparent and share that with you all so um this spreadsheet kind of has several tabs that include both the oil and natural gas calculations from the current buildings so I got data from the school on natural gas usage and oil usage um the most recent data was not for a year that they were fully in school because kids were out of school from March of 2020 to April of 2022 is that right I don't know it was a long time so um we we uh um April 2021 so anyway so I had to use some older years but I took a three-year average across both the natural gas usage and the oil usage electricity calculations I did the same thing um you can see here the factor sources I used for the different emission factors and the town and total numbers related to our greenhouse gas inventories so anyone who's so inclined can look through this and make sure I did all the calculations right I did share it with Steve and I think he did a check but um if you're interested please do um but the data summary tab is where I sort of laid out some talks some key points in my opinion so the first part here is you know just some high level points the current wildwood school runs on oil and electricity and contributes x amount of carbon dioxide equivalents the Fort River has a similar number based on its natural gas and electricity usage um the two buildings combined are half of our of the annual GHG emissions for Amherst from municipal buildings and I um channeled Jesse to look up the fact that they two buildings emit as much as energy to run 300 average homes so they're definitely quite energy hogs um or GHG hogs I should say yeah Jesse um I think you're but you're that's even conservative because you're not including the fugitive emissions from the gas exactly so these I would encourage you to do it's very difficult to find an emission factor that includes those so I looked for it um but yes we could certainly talk about that I mean I think if you footnote it and say how you came up with it it seems reasonable but yeah this is amazing yeah I think this is great too um I'm just trying to get a sense of the relative sizes of the two schools because I am given the fact that one runs when oil one runs on natural gas I would think the oil one would be a lot more greenhouse gas emitting and they seem to be less unless it's a substantially smaller of a school I believe they're the same size or reason or about the same size so and Steve also had a question about the natural gas numbers thinking they looked a little small um so we can double check yeah just to double check but yeah yeah yeah you have the emission factors is the same for both of them and that can't be right if one is using oil and one is using natural gas on the second spreadsheet or maybe that's oh I think that's electric and I'm looking at the wrong thing so the factor sources are the emission factors so the natural gas number is this and oh okay blue number is that all right never mind I'm looking at the wrong thing I just opened it for the first time apologies and yeah and also while my hands hasn't been put down yet I'm wondering is there a secondary check from the greenhouse gas inventory um that Stephanie did and the folks from New Hampshire did a number of years ago did that breakout the individual big buildings like the schools and I'm just wondering whether that would be another a second check um on this analysis I don't recall we'd have to take a look but we could easily do that I've got the data set and I could share it with Laura yeah good yeah so it would be helpful um I shared the raw data with with Steve but happy to share it with anybody else who wants to do before we put in these numbers out I definitely want to make sure other people's eyes have looked at them to make sure we've done the calculations correctly so um and I think that's a good idea Dwayne so um we can check that excel file from the 2016 inventory as well just to do another double check Laura what's what's the source of the data where did you get it so the source of the data comes from the um Rupert the facilities manager for the schools and it is in like um sort of it's coming from invoices right so it's the invoice from Berkshire gas and from whoever we get our oil from yeah so both Eversource and Berkshire gas if you can get access have online systems you can go back and look at three years worth of data on their platforms if there's a way to get access to those accounts the oil invoices are a little more difficult as you said there's there's sort of sporadic deliveries and I just wondered if you know a few invoices here and there might have gotten left out of the stack not counted so possibly you could check with oil supplier and see if with the school's permission they would provide you a list from their accounting system that might double check that the pile of invoices you got is is complete yeah that's a good a good point maybe let's and then we can start with maybe looking at the data that that Stephanie has and see how they compare certainly um and we have a lot more years of data so we can also sort of look at the trends of that and see if there's anything that looks um yeah normal Stephanie yeah I also have access to mass energy insight data so the the gas electric utility and Berkshire gas information gets automatically loaded there I will say that it's not a perfect system because there have definitely been some challenges in the past where information didn't get entered correctly so I think that it's been updated though so I'd be happy to help you know work with you and show you some of that if that would be helpful too okay great um so yeah borrowing that we need to check the numbers it think it's clear that these two buildings use a lot of energy um and that the new building is going to be using all electricity to do heat cooling and powering the building I think it's important to continue to highlight the cooling function of the new building that it does not exist in the current buildings um mainly because that's a resiliency issue right two years ago or whenever what there's been years where kids have had to leave school earlier have a day off because it's too hot in the buildings in September so um you know we have to address cooling and this is um going to do that I think the other I think and just on that note the resiliency and the educational aspects of the building are both pieces of our plan that we highlighted as important um and I think if we do write an op-ed we can also highlight those features so um from my calculations just you're using current electricity factors the new building will save us 20 percent of um 20 percent of emissions versus the old buildings and then of course we also have and we know and I think we can say in some respects that without switching to ground source heat pumps and running heating cooling and powering the building with electricity is really the only way to get the building to be net zero and as we continue to green the grid we will continue to see emission reductions associated with um this building and any building that any building we have in town that operates on electricity hey hey Laura you so you're saying the new building is 1900 metric tons of carbon emissions what was it for the current two buildings that was less than that um but it's replacing both of them yeah so okay so total yeah so total of 2400 against yeah um we do need to be careful about how we talk about the solar um because we don't know yet what the um what the final arrangement will be in terms of racks and things of that nature so I think it's safest for us to just focus on the fact that this building is contributing solar to our town and we need and contributing solar to the grid and as we continue to add more grids we can say the building is net zero but I don't think we can say that that solar is helping us meet our climate goals um directly but I think we can talk about it in a way that is clear so you're saying that because um we'll be selling the wrecks to offset I don't think we have the opportunity to keep the wrecks under the smart program so I don't even think it's an option would the school buy racks to replace those probably not so they could but given the budget crisis I don't think they will yeah yeah sorry I was just gonna double down on what Laura said that um under under the smart program the wrecks are really going to the utility company at this point but it would be I think we could you know once um we get the uh data on the size of the PV system we could estimate you know how much energy that will be producing over the course of a typical year and you know at least say something like we will be using grid electricity but we will be of that electricity will be um you know comparable to the amount that we will be putting on the grid that's clean energy um from the PV system if it's essentially balances each other add that for those of you who aren't aware that both the EPA and the federal trade commission sort of have highly specified language about how you can talk about these things to prevent companies and organizations from greenwashing you know claiming that they're using renewable energy but in fact they're not so it's it can be very tricky to explain these things and get the nuance correct guessing oops yeah so a couple quick things one still not entirely sure how Laura has a 28 hour day and the rest of us just a 24 hour day but always impressed um I want to one the the thing about the the story around the electric you know being electric in and of itself is not necessarily great you know especially if it's coming from gas and coal but being electric as as a sort of future proofing as the way to accommodate a changing energy climate you know we know how to make renewable electricity we still don't know how to make renewable fossil fuels I think that it's investing in a future if if it's not creating an immediate um solution and then my last question actually is um what's I'm sort of again similar to with Kathy like what's the ask like what can we do to sort of leverage and capitalize and and sort of maximize the work that you've done how do we support this turning into something that gets out in the world etc etc yeah so I think if folks are comfortable with us moving forward with the idea of developing um a type of letter to the editor or some something of that nature um I would suggest that I work with Visu to draft something up that then we can share with the group and get feedback um maybe even pulling you and Jesse as someone who's good at de-technifying some of this stuff um and then we can review it at an upcoming meeting and decide it and if we agree we can vote on it and then I think Visu could submit it to the paper on behalf of ECAC as the chair that would be my suggestion yeah I was going to recommend Jesse's input as well because I know we've talked in the past about de-technifying right about some of these what does tonnage mean in layman's terms right yeah I think that's a good idea for um Andrea and Jesse um I mean it may be obvious but wouldn't it be good for us to just vote and make a statement that we strongly support um the school and um urge the residents to vote for it yeah I mean we we can Andrea I don't know what that's going to do that's why I was asking Kat the about pushback that the that she's heard and it just seems like it's around a property taxes I mean I mean I don't see a problem with it but I don't know what value would add I think we can help create the FAQs which will help address all the questions that the community might have um and obviously I mean if we're talking op-ed then there's going to be ECAC's approval really uh the op-ed too I mean it one thing I would I think it it matters I think that having you know it known that um as many bodies as possible you know in the town support this I think we have to check I mean when we had this discussion last time about the library we I thought the understanding was that as a town committee we can't make a recommendation on how to vote but we could have if we had chosen to at that time which we didn't we could have come out with a statement about the climate benefits of the building and how this helps us meet our climate goals like that feels well within our charge um and we could make a vote on that you know that we think this helps us meet our climate goals and then we write the op-ed I think both of those are well within our within our abilities as a town committee of course us individually can do whatever we want yeah Laurie and Steve yeah I just wanted to say that I am really comfortable with writing an op-ed or passing a motion that says we support the development of this school we support the building of this school I am much less comfortable with encouraging people to vote for a tax increase in this day and age and with the inequities we already have I actually this is the first this is the first this is the first I've heard that there was going to be a tax increase over this so I guess not surprising but it's the first I've heard about it so I'm still trying to process that myself Steve this is a little off that topic um but Laura does anybody know what the plan is for the old school buildings and the sites because I worry that they'll get leased out to some other entity and the energy use will just continue in those old decrepit buildings yes Steve that's a great point and I haven't listed here but I forgot to speak to it um we need I think we need to say that clearly that these savings will only be realized if both of these buildings are discontinued in their current form whether that means someone takes them and updates them or tears them down and builds new like but they can't be kept they can't even be kept in working order right because the the fort my understanding is the Fort River school will be torn down because they're going to rebuild the fields there it's the Wildwood school that's more uncertain but it can't be you know it can't be kept in a in a like with heat running or anything because that's going to be using oil right yeah gotta watch out for that that they could make a promise now and that promise could change later down the road so I think the we we can't ask or infer or anything we can't tell anyone how to vote about anything I think as a group and just to clarify so we wouldn't be asking people to vote I think I think what we're doing is um what we're proposing to do would be also our first kind of public statement as a group I mean we did have a little bit of him you know we had a letter at the beginning of the carp but for the most you know an op-ed would be this would be our first statement um so I think that's pretty exciting and I hope it's not our last but I so it seems like who's who's in charge of vetting the the article for to make sure it's not breaking any of our our town kind of conflict of interest etc etc I'm not sure even what it is but I know we're not allowed to tell people to vote for anything yeah we'll definitely have to run it by Stephanie I don't think I don't know Stephanie your thoughts attorney Don Allison yeah that's true that's true I'll wait my turn he was like people have been doing that to conflict of interest training this week I wonder actually I'll speak up I mean I I see this as two different pieces one of which is clearly our bailiwick the other of which is something that's different I mean it's ours in the sense that we are residents of the town so the first question is really the question of do we need a new school and why do we need a new school because because if you're going to the town for an override one you've got to you've got to convince the population that yes we need a new school that's really not our bailiwick I think our bailiwick and I don't even know if this is accurate is convincing the public if the public believes we need a new school that the cost the size of the override is not going to be significantly affected by a net zero building now I don't know if that's accurate or not but I think if you're pushing this out to the general public there's a lot of people that are going to hear net zero they're going to hear you know all the things that are important to us and they're going to say wow this is costing a lot more money and that means the override is going to be a lot more than it would be if we just built a conventional new school um and you know I don't know what the rebates and what everything else we're talking about ultimately does to the reduction in the size of the override and I don't know how all those pieces fit together but those are really important pieces to the everyday the people that live in this community who are being asked to agree to raise their property taxes um and I don't know how we do that Laura you know vis-a-vis I mean I certainly am a hundred percent behind you know how important it is to have you know net zero buildings but how do you sell that to a community in economic terms and that was the hard part and I think that's where and I think when we know how much the solar I think there's two answers to that one is that graphic that Kathy showed shows that with the incentives let's assume we need the new school let's take that off the table we can either get a new school with gas or a new school with heat pumps and right now it's cheaper with all the incentives to get a new school with heat pumps that's that's fact so we can I'm sorry but yeah but is that I mean you know is my mind works and I you know okay we're raising the money to build the school right and that's going to require an override and then we get all these incentives back what where do they go so does it reduce the amount we have to raise yes so actually that's the way we're doing it we're basically because you've got to pay I mean my understanding of rebates and incentives is you pay up front and then they give it back to you afterward so luckily yesterday the finance committee I believe voted to take five million out of reserves so that we don't have to the tax payers don't have to pay up so we're we're expecting to get around four million and incentives so we we're sort of paying that forward we're saying here's five million from the reserves so that the taxes don't have to go up quite as much and when we get that four million back we'll put that back into reserves so we are they are trying to do that so it's not funny money if yeah I mean these are the kind of questions that I would think that somehow or other the education between now and may has to take place because you know lots of people will think oh yeah here's what's going to happen they're going to raise my taxes to pay for the building and then they're going to get their five four million dollars back and they're not going to give it back to me it's just going to sit in the town coffers and it's it's that kind of a mindset that has to be addressed and I don't know how you do it because it's hard but I'm done talking thanks yeah Don but I also don't think that's something that we should be thinking about at this point but I completely agree oh Jesse I don't I don't think it's our bailout yeah I think though that when like as Andra said if if if our statement is they're going to even going to be that that we're supporting you know the the construction of this school I don't know it just means we got to be really careful as to what we say we're supporting net zero buildings in in yeah and I think your point that net zero I think we do have to counter the notion that net zero is more expensive yes so I think we should figure out a way to talk about that in this if we can and and I just to add to that it sounds like it's less expensive capital costs less expensive operational costs and to and to how do we feed both of those back in to like how does that benefit you know Joe Amherst on a day-to-day basis if if it's you know so that's a good really good point but I think the operational costs I know Laura you've been working on that as well it's the savings and as the you know as the costs of energy go up those operational savings go up as well and well I'm actually worried about that right because that's the one unspoken downside which is how much less expensive would it be to run the building on gas right now not less expensive to run it on gas compared to heat pumps a geothermal maybe geothermal is yeah okay geothermal that's right I forgot it's geothermal it's not here we can't put something on the roof that makes natural gas that's right that's right and you so between the solar and the geothermal yes you're going to win that seems right yeah never mind well I still think you have to be careful about the operating costs Jesse because everyday Joe Amherst is going to look at this thing and say great we saved $600,000 in operating costs this year our taxes aren't going down the budget's going to you know that's that's a that's a in my line of work that's a smoke screen that's how you that well yeah no I understand but it's maybe that's something maybe that keeps the taxes from going up next time because we now are investing in infrastructure that costs less to operate so the long-term tax burden I mean it yeah it's all smoke screen and to some degree but it's a good I like the counterpoint I must admit we got to be able to answer it and the question is do we want to write this off it right and because of all the concerns that Don brought up andra and then something I think that the costs are absolutely our concern as the energy committee in town we educate people about the tremendous incentives that are now coming through from state and federal mostly federal and that because of that being this highly efficient building and using you know clean heat we're reducing the amount of the override that's a selling point that is ours to make is the you know point that's ours to Stephanie so I'm just going to kind of reiterate some of what everyone's already been saying but back to Lars very sort of simple point that right in the beginning when we were talking with Kathy and we were attending some of the early meetings about this building construction the whole concern was that people need to understand that a net zero building doesn't automatically mean that it's going to cost more and that people need to understand how incentives affect that upfront cost so again I think the the thing is that a lot of this especially I mean I know what we're talking about and it all sounds really complicated so for the average person you need to be sort of bringing this down to basic language so people understand what it means and what the incentives mean and I do think to andra's point that is very much a responsibility of this group to help people understand the differences in the technology and why that matters and how it impacts cost and savings you just have to make it really simple and break it down into very very digestible or break it all down to very digestible language so that's what I you know that's how I do agree that I do think it's that's part of the whole educational piece of what you do right and any conflict of interest Stephanie with writing it off because you're not because the point is you should not be advocating that people do this and vote for it what you're doing is just educating people to understand the difference in the technology and the difference in what those costs mean so for people to understand why it doesn't mean it's automatically a more expensive building and prospect so you're not advocating one way or the other you're just simply giving them the information that helps them to understand the differences between different technologies done yeah I agree 100% Stephanie I mean I really do that's an important issue for people that you know we need a new school in Amherst you know my four kids all went to the Amherst public schools my daughter was at Fort River you know I we definitely and it was old then and she's 37 so I can't even imagine you know what it's like now but the choice to build a new school what we have to do is make it clear to people that building it net zero is actually going to cost less than if you build it with a fossil fuel you know a fossil fuel burning heating and air conditioning system and that's that to me is really important and I think it is our job to educate people if you're going to build a new school it's going to be less expensive and better you know overall for a number of reasons it's going to be better to to build it net zero not not to mention that you have to but it's better to do it that way thanks and I got to interrupt real quickly doing it's the point is you can't use the net zero as a reason to say like oh they passed the net zero bylaw and now it's too expensive for us to build the new school yeah no so I'll just be real quick I agree with everything and and certainly that we we should not say anything about you should vote this way or not that's not our role but our role is to sort of use our provide our expertise to educate the community and I agree with everything that was just said I do wonder about there is you know this conspiracy theories are all over the place so you know this idea that the town can take these what I think Don brought up is conceivably the town can take these incentive monies and these operational savings and spend them on something else and and not necessarily drive down the costs associated with with the school or hire more teachers or reduce the tax override that they're seeking from from the community members at this point so I do wonder whether we can articulate that that that is not that these incentives and that the operating savings will be help is it is in fact helping to reduce the override that's necessary that being said we if we can get get some input from the town the financial folks are from the town manager that that is indeed the plan then you we can sound a bit more credible along those lines yeah I mean I think we can certainly say that about the override because of the vote yesterday with the five million I think the operating cost is a little harder but what I would suggest is that I work with Visu and maybe loop Jesse in as appropriate to draft up something that then we can all look at and start to pick apart Jesse does anyone know is there any published information about what what the cost per you know what what the tax burden would be is has that come out yet is there estimates yes there are I don't know them off the top of my head but I think they were in the paper Lake last week or just reading that guys I have to go at 630 they I really can't stay late so yeah let's let's move on to the next topic and so Laura I think we have a plan let's plan on reviewing with ecac on April 12th in that meeting that one okay okay thank you uh Lori the sustainability festival just quick word on they sign up and we'll deal with it next time yeah yeah okay any closing comments or updates Stephanie do you want to highlight I just want to tell you that I interviewed the fellows for both the greenhouse gas emissions inventory update and the building inventory and timeline for changing buildings out from fossil fuels and I'm always so super super impressed with the caliber of students that the unh sustainability institute program is able to to secure for these fellowships they're amazing and I feel like we had five candidates for two positions and they were all I mean any of them would be amazing they're all really incredible so I feel like we can't really lose so I just wanted to show and uh oh Don you had your hand raised well I just have a I just have a quick update um since I will not be at the next meeting when you would normally discuss pace since I'm going to be in I think Senegal when the next meeting happens um either Senegal or the Gombe I I'm not completely clear on the on the itinerary but um I didn't want everybody to know that I Claudia did get back to me from the chamber she and I are meeting on Friday and she believes that she has a committee or will be able to come up with some sort of plan to share um pace information with the business and development community in Amherst and I will share that with you when I return from West Africa that's all that's good Don I'll probably see you at the sustainability festival then you will yeah I just signed up to set up for two hours Laurie Don can I just jump in real quick when is that meeting with Claudia uh Friday morning here she's coming to my office Stephanie okay um I can send you the time tomorrow if you want to know um yeah just curious because I I yeah maybe weigh in or just you know I would love to yeah I'm sorry that I didn't get to be yesterday but I'll I'll shoot you an email tomorrow with the time all right all right if I can do it I will yep under anything that we can wrap up in 15 seconds your comments yeah I just wanted to ask if we could have your um email to the town manager about our vote about this yeah yeah we'll do we'll do thank you and then for the agenda next the next meeting I just have the annual report discussion on the timeline Stephanie and then the usual progress reports without Don but I think we will have the transportation report out because Stella was here today I didn't have um I didn't get to do the legislative oh yeah that's right sorry thanks any public comments um yes Martha Hanner um you can go ahead and unmute hi that Martha Hanner real interesting discussion so I just wanted to say that while you're you know writing something to you know extol this new building and so on you might possibly want to include a chart or a comment from the Massachusetts state plan there's one particular chart that shows graphically the extent to which buildings contribute a really large share of the greenhouse gases in the state and that might be something you might want I could email some of you that should the chart if you wanted and you know how that has to decrease to meet the state's goals and so on uh so just a suggestion that's all so uh it sounds a good idea for for what you're going to do to to write things up so thank you yeah thanks Martha and send it along to either me or Stephanie okay right thank you anyone else from the public interested in making a comment or asking a question please feel free to electronically raise your hand i don't think there any oh oh Rudy go ahead hi Rudy perk Rudy Perkins can you hear me yes great uh real quick um just for those of you who want to personally advocate for the school there is a new group out yes for Amherst schools.org you probably know about that but if you go to that website they have information yes for Amherst schools.org and also where you can volunteer and donate because it will take an effort to get this through and secondly at a broader level the climate action plan has a lot about trying to get other buildings and other owners of buildings to retrofit to get rid of fossil fuels in their buildings and I think if this committee doesn't take a strong position not necessarily having I understand you have restrictions on voting but extolling the virtues of the net zero and fossil free nature of this our first building under the municipal bylaw then how are you going to talk other people into doing this and how are you going to talk other people into spending their personal finances directly to improve their buildings make them fossil free put in these new energy systems I I think this is our best example to lead the way for the rest of the town and you all are a really good force to to help lead that in the ways that you can in your constraints so thanks so much I hope you write a really strong op-ed I'm looking forward to reading it thanks Rudy okay that's all we have the time for thank you everybody for dialing it have a good evening thanks thank you thanks to you