 Okay, we are recording. Great. So first business here is to review the minutes from our last meeting. And to identify a new way to take her. So Dwayne, you took these minutes, correct? Okay. So, um, Darcy, I think that puts you next. On the list. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Anybody have any questions or comments? Otherwise, if somebody wants to. Motion. To accept. Great. Thanks, Andrea. I will second that. Um, Stephanie, do you, do you want to take a roll call? Sure. Um, Dumont. Same. Uh, okay. Um, Do you want to take a roll call? Yes. Yes. Selman. Can I say yes, even though I wasn't there? Because I think we. I think we need you. We need me out. I'm going to say yes. Rose. Breger. Yes. Der. Yes. I didn't read them. So I would feel better abstaining. Um, so that only gives us. Um, We need five. We need five. Oh, well, just say yes. Can we vote twice? I hear we can vote twice. Yeah. Do that again. Definitely change your vote. Yeah, let's just do that again. Do you want? Yes. Drucker. Yes. Selman. Yes. Breger. Yes. Rose. Yes. Der. Great. So that's five zero one. They're approved. Great. Do we know where the agenda is? Or where I would find it. It's, I sent it in your packet, but I can put it up on screen now. If you just give me a second. I don't see it in the packet. It was in the packet. It came, she's Stephanie sent an update with. Um, so it came in the first email she sent. Okay. Which came on the fourth. At 11 should be. So here's the tonight's agenda. Do we have anybody in the public? Stephanie. Um, One moment. Maybe I could check. No, we do not. Okay. Great. Um, okay. So then we can move on to staff updates. So the first big thing is that, um, We did receive our green communities funding. Uh, for roughly 126,000. That's for mostly for lighting retrofits at the months in library, town hall and the police station. And then we also, which I kind of am most excited about is we got funding to, um, Install an anti idling device for when the. You know, when they get their new ambulance, they haven't purchased it yet, but when they do get that purchase, which will probably happen next year may not happen this fiscal year, but it may happen next fiscal year. Then, um, that device, uh, can be purchased to be installed on the new ambulance, which is kind of exciting. So, uh, There's that. And then. There's been more discussion around the, um, Federal brick grant. And we're potentially now looking at. Um, some of the, um, some of the, um, some of the, um, Federal brick grant funding that we're citing. So that's, um, That's something that we might be looking into, uh, For that, for that grant funding. Um, I will keep you posted and updated on that. And also again, they are, there are some, um, information sessions that are happening in the next week or so. Uh, and I will be attending those and, um, I'm just going to, um, I'm going to be looking at our inter municipal CCA effort to see if we can get funding for that. So. Sorry to interrupt. We're looking at your, um, Direct. Oh, not my. Okay. You should be looking at. Right. I'm just going to stop share. I thought the agenda was up there. Sorry. On my screen, my agenda was showing. So I'm not sure why it didn't show for that. Um, but, um, Yeah. So those are the few grant funding opportunities right now that, um, the brick grant is kind of a big deal, especially for resiliency and adaptation. That's really, um, Something that's fairly significant. So we're going to be looking into that. So I, I, again, I'll keep you updated. Well, what's the grant for solar sighting? So that's the one that's the brick grant. That's the federal brick grant. Um, So that's why I think that the grant is, um, It focuses mainly primarily on resiliency. Um, of communities. And so, um, You can apply for more than, than one. Um, they really encourage inter municipal, um, Collaborations. So that's why CCA came to mind is something that we might potentially look to, but the solar sighting is something that could be, um, Um, Um, And we, um, We're also going to be looking at the funding as well. So we might, um, try to get like an in depth solar sighting analysis for the, for the town. So these are just a couple of things that are being discussed. Um, and once I, I haven't attended the session yet. They haven't held the sessions, the information sessions yet. So, uh, once I attend those, I'll have more information to be able to share. Steffi. If I might just, um, Add to that. We, we, the, Um, We're also going to be looking at the, Um, Um, ongoing grant with NREL. Uh, that's looking at solar sighting and rural communities. Um, and looking at, uh, particularly, um, We have three pilot towns that we're working with. Um, and part of the grant is really to be able to replicate. Well, we're doing, you're part of this through the, Yeah. Exactly. You're aware of it. Yeah. But they don't, but they aren't, But I don't know if everybody else is aware. So. Yeah. Okay. So, and I know, um, Yeah. Which I'll, I may have to compliment what I say with, With an email as well, but, um, And so we have three pilot towns that we're, We're, um, working on, on solar sighting methods and so forth, really with the focus as with the CCA. And that's why, um, Amherst Bell and Northampton as part of this effort is really looking at the CCA model to bring in more community, um, Engagement and, um, ownership, if not economic value, uh, to the community, But, um, just, you know, if it, if it helps, um, You might reference that, um, ongoing work, um, as well as, um, One of the goals and work that we're doing is having replicable models for this solar sighting. And we've actually done. And prepared reports as you might have seen for the three pilot towns, Which could be, um, something that you, uh, could build on, uh, For this, uh, brick grant. Yeah. Yeah. We can follow up. Definitely. I'll, I'll, um, touch base with you. Thank you. What were the pilot towns? Um, uh, West Hampton, Wendell and Blamford. Um, uh, Somewhat random towns, but they were all three there. They needed to meet rural definitions, which I think most of Western mass does. Um, and they were, um, Um, Green, green communities, uh, as well as, um, Sort of came forward as, as good partners with us. It's, it's awesome that you bring that up to a, and we, Laura and I have been talking about this particular project for a couple of days now. And it's like, And we need to ask Dwayne to talk about this. Yeah. We can schedule another maybe call or something or zoom or whatever, Uh, to do that. Not bringing my river strong. Who's my partner on this? We were thinking that maybe river was pretty. Yeah. That's great. Great. Just that. Yeah. I don't have any benefit. Allison Bates is part of our team too, particularly with regard to stakeholder engagement, uh, reaching out to the towns and. Assessing community interest. Awesome. She's my old program director from grad school. So. That's great. Glad to know she's involved. Okay. Great. So next up is EKAC member updates. Darcy, were you able to find the agenda? No, but I'll, I'm, I'm, I'm punting. We do just to let you know, we do have the zoning bylaw discussion as a agenda item. Yeah. No, I assume that we would. Um, so. I think you all might have seen that I sent you. Just at the beginning of this meeting, my. Um, my updated, um, proposal that I sent just from myself to the community resources committee, community resources committee. Our gave counselors until yesterday. To submit our own. Personal zoning priorities. Um, which. Um, So, and they're going to have a big meeting on the 15th. Uh, that they're inviting the rest of the council to, to look at. Um, everybody's lists. I assume everybody's lists are going to be in the packet and, and, um, why it did not originate without breach to the community. I'm not completely sure, but. Uh, in any event that is coming. So I just, I provided that to you guys just as an example. What the counselors are doing. Uh, mine may be the only ones that have anything in there has anything in there related to climate. I don't know. So I haven't seen them. I have seen a couple of, um, lists that don't do much because of the fact that we don't have our plan out there yet. Um, so I just, um, I'm wondering whether, um, Maybe we could just pull that up. Um, just, um, for a moment to look at the climate action list in it. And, and just to put it out there, whether. The committee wants somebody wants to take this on, or whether you want me to put something together or. What you would like to do. Um, because I'm, I'm, I am proposing, and I'm hoping that ECAC will put something forward to give to the CRC. Is I'm not seeing what's up there. Is there something. No, um, Stephanie, do you want me to try to show it? Yes. Wait a minute. Is it possible to bring it up on the screen? Sure. Okay. So the, um, the first ones are about. The more traditional zoning topics of housing. Um, neighborhood, uh, you know, protecting neighborhoods and so on. And then climate is, um, Right there. Incorporate the town's climate action goals. Um, which I could also put at the top. Obviously I had it at the top to begin with. Um, and then, um, I decided to move it. Uh, For no good reason. Um, so, um, Um, Um, These are the, the topics. Yeah, you can stop it there. Um, So it's basically saying that, that we're asking to incorporate the plan that we. Come up with as a committee, but in the meantime. Um, Prepare to reduce emissions and create resiliency with these actions. And these are just coming from me. Not from the committee. So, um, Some of them are in the area of buildings, transportation. Um, I came up with some ideas that were totally. Um, new. Um, So that B, for example, Required developers and landlords to create 10 year transition plans, including incremental steps. They'll be taking in the direction of zero net energy, solar, And EV readiness such as those used in Cambridge and Somerville. That is new. And also C is new. in the regional community choice segregation joint powers entity as a condition of building or operating. So that is the other things are and the other new thing I put in here is I create food transportation service desert overlay districts targeting increased public transportation connectivity which I basically got directly from our meetings with our outreach group so I'm you know I'm not these are just like I said these are just mine that the council will look at and say these are Darcy's suggestions our list doesn't have to track these but but it would be nice if we had a list and that we could send them specifically what our zoning related climate requests would be. So comments, thoughts? I'm curious do we have any expertise in this group about what zoning that understands what zoning is already legal in Massachusetts? I think one thing that would really help with all of any suggestions we make is if we're proposing things that have a legal pathway where we're not going to be excited about an idea and then bump into that we're breaking mass general law or proposing zoning that does not conform to mass general law. Right yeah no I agree with that I mean we could also just add to the extent allowed by law or something like that which I have put in some parts of this but yeah and some some of them might be new territory where there might not be law but that that's a good good point. I think if we're aware of we might handle it differently if we're pushing against the state or against ourselves. Right if you do incentives like you know tax rebates for meeting higher energy efficiency standards that's legal and we can require plans that they don't have to build we just can't require higher energy efficiency in buildings. Darcy I got a question about timeline because you were saying that the CRC was asking for this input by a certain date but my understanding I had a meeting with Chris Breistrup the other day actually yesterday and who's the planning director and I was asking her about what's happening with zoning with the zoning bylaws and I mean it sounds to me that that process is much longer it I'm not sure where these deadlines are coming from from the CRC if they're just using them as guidance for working with with town staff on amending the zoning bylaws it just seems like it's a much longer process than where we're sort of what I'm hearing from in these meetings is that it's something that's happening really quickly but when I talk to Chris it sounds like something that's going to take time. It is going to take time and that's more of what the chair Mandy Joe Hanna key has been saying in the last couple of weeks is that this meeting on the 15th is just the beginning of what's going to be a fairly long process because I think they're probably going to be hearing from a lot of people that we have to do outreach to the whole town obviously we have to get input from everybody and so I don't think it's urgent that we get it done like in the next week but I think that we should figure out what we're going to do and plan on doing something. I wrote to my councillors and asked and also corresponded with Mandy Joe and Andy Steinberg about it and my overarching ask was to slow down enough that our climate plan could feature into the zoning bylaws overhaul so I don't know if you know they're thinking that long but by May we're supposedly going to have some recommendations and ideas right? So my understanding from my conversation with Chris Brestrup was that I definitely think our process will finish and we'll have a plan completed far before the zoning bylaws get completely overhauled and updated. That's just so involved it's just going to take a long time and my understanding was that there are pieces that staff are doing that even the staff review is going to take probably a year for some of the work that they're doing like what the work that Rob Mara is doing to look at where the zoning bylaws conflict there's conflicting information you know that's going to take him you know probably at least a year to go through absolutely everything. I think that's correct I think that this that this council is probably going to be motivated to get this done well in advance of the end of their first term. So that that's a deadline right there. And is that next year or 2020 next year? Yeah but I think that I think it's still important for us to get ideas in you know when when we feel does the group feel like we're at a point where we could even do that now in our process or we're not. I was going to suggest that maybe we following sort of what Andra has has done personally with her with the councillors that she's been speaking to we submit like an ECAC memo saying that we are working on this plan and that it will have implications for zoning and we'd like the opportunity to present maybe we can present a draft plan at the end of the fiscal end of the calendar year and be involved in the conversation and how we can integrate our climate action plan into the zoning bylaws. I think because what I what I think this is a great list Darcy and I like some of these more innovative ideas I think it's more I don't know what the zoning bylaws laws would look like but my sense is that it would probably be more powerful is instead of having an own section on climate actions these are integrated into all of the bylaws for which they're related to and I think there's also going to be some need for us to think through some contradictions that may pop up. So just from like breezing through this quickly you know keeping buildings low in downtown could also make it challenging when we're talking about trying to densify the center of town and incorporate public transportation and more effectively. So that's something that I think we need to spend a little more time with through our action planning process. Yeah some of these things are just political you know just a question of whether we want to densify the UMass campus or downtown and that is that's more political than than than climate related. Yeah but you could see how that limit limitations there could impact our ability to achieve some of the other goals that we have that are climate related and so we should be thinking about that in the context of climate not necessarily there's one zone about law about this and there's one bylaw about this and to the extent that we could pull it together. So yeah I think that's a good idea to to put something together indicating that the committee is very aware of what's going on and we want to be included you know that we're still in progress and that we hope to be able to provide something by the end of the calendar year. That makes sense to me. What do other folks think about that? Yeah I'd like that. I wrote up I had a couple of things some are similar to what Darcy has so you know I don't know if we want to I think it's useful to give examples because it just like you say climate you know resilience and energy issues and people don't know what you're talking about but you say you know green roofs and solar ready and things like that they know exactly what you mean. Yeah um so Andra would you like to maybe draft the memo with some examples on it? All right. Sorry. Yeah um can I send it to people and and get feedback? You can send it to me Andra and I'll send it out and people would send feedback back to me and I'll consolidate it and get it to you. Great that'd be good I appreciate that. Does it make sense for us to spend any time in our task groups kind of do maybe doing an exercise or a conversation about you know what zoning is and how how it relates to the our specific topics and get some kind of real time input there. I don't even know if we have time in in what in our last meeting or not just an idea. I think that's a good idea land use in particular but um but the other the other groups also we don't have land use here they're not out of the meeting. But I agree Jesse I think um even to the extent that we're recognizing that this is an up and coming community outreach opportunity for which not everyone may be aware myself included all of the implications that zoning has on climate um I think that's a good point to raise to gain to either to gather feedback on or even just to point out that this is going to be happening soon in that um this is another opportunity to to engage on the topic. Yeah I would just add that the idea of implementation pathways is definitely something that is framing the the third task group conversations and zoning is one of those pathways so definitely want to keep that in mind. Great sounds good. I just wanted to add for the third meeting that I've been talking to some staff and I think we I know that technically we wanted everybody to be part of all three meetings but there may be some department heads like Chris Brestrup that will be able and willing to attend the third meeting for each group so I just want to make sure that um hey I just want to make sure that everybody's on board with that I mean I know that was sort of the intent from the beginning but because we're specifically talking about implementation I think it's a really important time to have them there so I'm just making sure before I totally follow up on that that the committee that's the committee's wish. Yeah I see nodding heads. Great 50 percent of the building's task group agrees. Okay great um does anyone we sort of jumped into the zoning by-law discussion is there is there more to that discussion Darcy or does does that cover it? That covers it but I do have um I did want to update about the speaking with the finance committee and also the capital inventory thing so how much time do we need for that niche presentation this shouldn't take that long actually just to update those two things. Yeah why don't you give a quick update and then we'll okay that I did um attend the last finance committee meeting um to give an update about um our our process and um Sean Mungana was there who's the finance director uh which was good um and uh it seems like the basic takeaway for me was that um um that they felt like when they looked at our timeline um they thought it was really important that we come to them with something by the end of the calendar year if we have any thought of getting anything into the budget because that's that's their main you know that's what they do the budget um so and they made that statement very strongly Sean Mungano did and Andy Steinberg the chair pretty much saying that it's too late to be putting anything in front of them um in the spring so um I think that we just need to to uh and the other thing that was said was that Lynn who was also on the on the committee Lynn Griezmer the president of the council said that she thought when we come up with if we come up in November and December with our list of priority actions or some kind of a budget request um that we'll need to have some kind of she was basically saying you can't get it in the budget unless it's approved by the town council um it seemed like that's what she was saying and that that we would need to have some kind of a a meeting to discuss our proposal so that is unclear I probably need to talk to her more about that but she seemed to be saying something along those lines of of that we can't just come to the finance committee and say put this in the budget um but of course I mean we can we can do that it's just a question of whether they will put it in if it's not um something that is the town manager can put it in anything so I mean we should go to both the finance committee and the town manager because the town manager puts in what he wants yeah I was just going to say you definitely would need to get it I mean you're a committee appointed by the town manager so um you would need to run it by him first probably even before you submit it to the council right yeah so we'd be sending it to him um and uh and trying to get his blessing um so just putting that out that that that's basically what happened in the finance committee uh we don't care a larger effort or intention for the town to like look holistically at our budget prior budget and compare it to the priorities of our town this seems so incremental and frankly a ridiculous process there's a lot that we do that's ridiculous um uh I think that's good feedback to give to the council um but I'm just wondering I mean with all of the things that went on this summer with police budget and everything else I mean I think we're seeing a lot of other towns have their budgets looked at at the highest level in terms of what are the priorities of our community and that feels like a much easier way for us to be able to look at and show how climate action and resiliency is feeding into our greater community needs and then into how it's reflected in the budget um and it sounds like we're still planning on and I know those conversations have happened at the very highest level and in dialogue but it sounds like the feedback you're getting from the finance committees that we're just kind of rolling forward with the same old approach to people putting in items and trying to get them funded and that's the right place to push for this high level thing but if there's other groups out there doing it the place to push for it is probably with the town manager because he he puts forward the budget and uh that is also a place where we could make that request to look at it holistically in light of the all of his goals that the town council has put forward um the whole financial situation with COVID-19 um the urgency of prioritizing climate yeah I think that it would be good for us to to um focus on on him especially but good point Laura yeah well you know I can't help but say on the finance committee as well I mean if you're just talking about just the structure of things not a specific item going through then how it's structured now and the role of the finance committee and what they prioritize is really relevant to that conversation as well you want to get I mean ultimately the town council has to approve the budget so it's a combination you know you can get the town manager to put something in but the town the town council approved everything that was in the budget this year they can't add to the budget but they can take away from the budget um and um so and the finance committee it's very important to get their recommendation because the town council generally will go with the town town the finance committee's recommendation but I didn't see them recommend anything that the town manager didn't you know they didn't they did not recommend against the town manager in any way this year so if you get the town manager on our side that's a good thing so that's all I really have to say about that I think that we might want to put together something on that too to the town manager prior to submitting what we want to have in our budget but we don't have to decide that right now I have another member update are you done Darcy well I just want if anyone is interested in the the capital inventory thing is going forward it's just going to get at the next town town council meeting it's probably just going to get well it did get referred to the to the finance committee so if we want the finance committee to look at anything in particular then we need to tell them um if we want to add anything to just their basic inventory of of vehicles and buildings etc then we need to tell them so and they were they were leaning toward not doing anything additional at the meeting you know just saying we know how to do inventories you know it's very basic and we'll just do what we always don't have done um so if we want them to do more than that we need to tell them and if anybody here wants to either work with me on that or do it um we you know there's just a few additional categories that we would probably want them to add it feels like another conversation it is it is um uh you know I had didn't I got additional information from Stephanie but we didn't really have a conversation about it you know I we could just see if we want to add a few columns to their inventories and see if this group would agree with what the categories are I don't even think they're looking at the categories that they have to be honest we've talked about this right at the very very beginning when you all started your process and this question came up they're supposed to be a cost you know a benefit analysis and that's not done so um you know they already have categories that they're not adhering to so I'm not sure adding even adding more I think they should but I you know again I think this is another process another conversation to have regarding this process at another meeting because there's a lot more to it I think yeah like what would be our options for sort of enforcement of what's already in the inventory spreadsheet right so Stephanie already you have in your packet the the vehicle's inventory that Stephanie has had to do for the green communities um so to me it feels like why are we doing more than one type of inventory that seems kind of like a waste of time and money um why don't we just have one process that the Shown does you know either every two years or is it every two years for green communities it's every year I look at it every year and DPW does something different than everybody else and it's time-consuming and arduous and frustrating so I just yeah it's not an easy inventory budgeting process and inventory process okay so easily just vehicles yeah just the vehicle well yeah vehicles is kind of a big one but yeah it's um it's not an easy one either getting information is not always easy so we also want them to look at HVAC systems we want them to look at roofs and solar and the water treatment plant and a lot of we have a number of different things that would fall under capital inventory um so do you want me to make a proposal about that sure okay I'll probably have to talk to you about it Stephanie because just to basically to find out what's already being done Stephanie has told me a lot of already okay great Andra um I just wanted to mention there's a regenerative food network group of you know not slightly affiliated I guess with climate action now and they're they want to you I think heard about this Stephanie they want to um do a showing of a new movie called kiss the ground on the common and I thought maybe we want to cosponsor that they don't know if they want to do it on the premiere date but I that's like coming up so Stephanie what do you what do you think about that um in terms of having this committee cosponsor that I don't see why you know I mean I don't necessarily see why not if you all are so inclined I mean you certainly have this topic as part of the work that you're currently doing um so it's it seems like it can't hurt I don't you know sorry could help facilitate if it's going to be on the common yeah I've already someone's already reached out to me about that and I just have to forward it because I personally can't be the one to sort of necessarily look at the comment on behalf of for them so I need to um first of all find out if they're even booking the common because I'm not sure they are to be honest right now I don't even know if that's possible yeah so I just have to find that was the first thing that I was going to look into because I was about to just contact someone and say oh can we reserve the common and then I thought oh we might not be doing that right now so but yeah I'll follow up and I don't see I mean if you all want to sort of formally say you're a cosponsor of this event it's up to you all to vote on that have you watched it andra no but it it hasn't come out yet but kiss the ground is a um a project that's been going on for like seven years and there's a lot of short little interviews that um I think they went back to some of the same people to put together so you can look it up kisstheground.com and I don't know what the timing is that they're thinking about though probably they would need us to decide now so but it's it's just promoting regenerative farming right yeah that's the main thing I'm all for that myself is there anybody who has problem has reservations since we haven't seen what we're endorsing that feels a little weird I mean what what you could do and I don't I mean one way you could sort of skirt around this as a committee I mean it could be just supported by sustaining amherst as well which is technically what I do when I say we're supporting something we just have the logo the sustaining amherst logo and slap that on it and you know essentially that work is affiliated with all of you as well so it's sort of a roundabout way of saying you're supporting that without having to sort of officially do so if because I'm I'm I mean I'm totally happy to I've been working with Sarah and the collaborative on some of their initiatives so it makes sense to do that so I'm happy to okay let's do that is that good enough uh Andrew yeah okay yeah so I'll follow up and help them out as best I can okay thanks great um anything else I'll just mention that there's a great lecture series that was announced today at UMass from the history department the Feinberg lecture series which is an annual series and this year they dedicated the full academic year lecture series to the climate emergency and sort of historical perspectives but it's it's pretty broad a really great set of speakers some of whom I recognize some I don't but I was gonna chat out the link but I don't know if we have chat capability in this format so just you know Google UMass history department Feinberg lecture Dwayne you can also send me the link and I can send it to everybody okay great I will do that yeah yeah it's really it's open to the public and they're eager to to make it available to everybody so yeah obviously by zoom Dwayne I just signed up for the keynote today it's from Wal Kimmerer who is amazing if you all haven't heard of her um she wrote braiding sweet grass and gathering both yeah that's great wow how do you spell Feinberg uh F E I N B E R G great thanks Dwayne um he was just gonna add quickly that I did listen to a pretty neat webinar last week from uh NECC did Jim or Lauren listen to that um it included someone from Worcester like the sustainability person I think from Worcester and a couple other people um anyway it was I'm waiting for them to hopefully send the recording and I'll pass it along to everybody because particularly the Worcester persons take on how they're trying to implement a lot of like how they're trying to integrate in similar ways the work we're doing around building solutions that meet multiple needs and that really helped to I mean the whole the whole topic was kind of about environmental justice and social welfare building into energy projects um so if I ever get those slides or presentation I will send them to you but um the person from I'll try to at least find the name of the person from Worcester no it was a gentleman um I thought I knew but I can't seem to find them um but yeah anyway okay so let's given um that we've sort of jumped around a little bit let's I think move first to the niche engineering Q&A part and then we'll then we'll do the task group so um Isabella if you want to leave you can right thank you so much and thanks for inviting having me here today um so I will do what is most efficient and what you would like where you think we we all get the most out of it so I mean I've prepared some slides they are quite a few um and I I hear that you all review those um so I don't necessarily need to run through all those slides um so if there is like if our time is all better spent with um me maybe highlighting some items or jumping right into Q&A I'm happy to do whatever Laura I think this is an opportunity to um if if people want to start with questions if you have questions from reviewing that material uh this would be a great place to start if uh there are not any questions from reviewing material we might ask Isabella to go ahead and talk about a couple of things that uh might be highly relevant but I suspect that people should have spent some time reviewing the the slides uh am I is that right yeah why don't we um jump in with folks either if they have questions or if there's parts of the presentation that they wanted clarification on um and then if we haven't discussed something that Isabel or Jim you or Lauren you feel like we should touch on um we'll do that does that sound good okay works for me and I can pull up the the presentation slides if that's helpful sure so are we starting with questions yeah go ahead Andra um so I had a kind of general question about cost comparisons you know the cost benefit analysis of green versus gray infrastructure for um stormwater solutions and it's always good to be able to make that argument that um in the long run it's cheaper but what what are the actual costs up front is it you know more expensive and to who yeah you're jumping right in and it's a very interesting question because it would be cost benefit analysis um so depends on which model you use for that so if you're using the the female model um which is necessary like if you're applying for the the BRIC program the building resilient infrastructure program or any like female related grants um you need to follow that and so that particular benefit cost analysis um incorporates nature-based solutions and also social benefits to some extent and so there is like but there is a caveat to that so it incorporates those benefits to to the society and a natural environment only if um the the costs are already or the the benefits are already outweighing the costs by at least 75 percent and there's probably more information you want it from me to start off with um but it just sets the tone a little bit as to what is compared here and um what benefits are we talking about and and I think the the the main takeaway like when we talk about green infrastructure is that there are like a lot of co-benefits uh when you install green infrastructure solutions whereas if you would simply upgrade the culvert um repair that or increase the size of a of a stormwater or a water main pipe um because when you use like green infrastructure you at the same time like create healthier air cleaner air you you add to cleaner water so you're you're adding recharge to the water system um you're addressing both um flood uh flood items floods um issues and at the same time it benefits uh like increased temperature so there are a lot of co-benefits of that and and not to forget like about what it does to place making and um social welfare social benefits so all of this um can't really be captured in one single number typically and um so and yeah nitch has done a lot of green infrastructure examples we're currently actually writing a green infrastructure manual for the boss water and sewer commission we have worked with a lot of different on a lot of different scales like from like really small uh scale infrastructure measures to large scale like university campus or like the district scales in in cities um and so it always depends on what are you comparing like what problem do you need to solve and how do you go about it and um what means do you have in order to to go about it and so our typical um way to go about it is looking at very detailed as to what are we actually trying to solve like what is the issue at hand is it is it flooding what is the where are we looking to solve that problem um would we also need to potentially look and typically it's not just flooding at one location but it's like it comes from somewhere so it's like a more of a watershed based approach it's more like a an approach that takes that also looks at where does the water actually come from and where does it pass through and um and so our approach is like to look at that from a watershed based scale and then um trying to understand where problem areas we are where issues and and also looking at what what is needed what what can be done can some more of be for example um just capped off uh from running into the stormwater drain so what and what are the benefits to that so that it just not simply becomes like this byproduct of like rain but it's actually a resource recognizes a resource itself and it becomes more um of a use for for the environment and and and you can even integrate into play features like they are beautiful examples about that um and and so our approach then is like looking at what is doable at a specific site and sometimes if especially if we're looking at um a road intersection which is pretty narrow um you also need to come up with a solution that addresses water quality as well because you have like detrimental byproducts from road from like cars and such and so you would need to address water quality and that can be easily done through the mix of certain rain infrastructure strategies and measures and in my presentation I had like a a lengthy list of like the types of rain infrastructure that that can be looked into so it depends like where you want to put it into and what your role needs are um so yeah and based on that just another thought on comparing costs and and benefits um obviously are is like maintenance um and that is typically an an aspect that is very interesting to um dpw departments because in the end they are responsible for maintaining green infrastructure and so sometimes they're like if you would opt to to have like previous pavement or if you have like a parking lot where you can easily set aside um portions that um that become like previous services um so they would need just a different way of maintaining it and so that is more a conversation that needs to be had um as to how to go about this but um yeah definitely maintenance is a factor that is um that needs to be factored in in in the overall discussion is about a question oh go ahead go ahead me or somebody else um this is i think this is really interesting because i think why two thoughts one thought looking through the slides is that you know we sort of have already seen an example of this just even this summer right with like Fort River having to close for swimming because of high runoff um hot temperatures so we you know i think that's i think that's just an example of of something that's happening because we have different types of rain events not that we've necessarily had more rain this summer but our rain events have been different than normal um where i think this ties in actually really well with our previous conversation is like how could we build green infrastructure into the zoning and then how do we build the cost benefit analysis that you were just describing into our budgeting process in our inventory process because i think what we want to avoid doing is to to your point you know repairing outdated technology that is just a band-aid solution without thinking more holistically about how a green infrastructure project or some other way of addressing an issue could be beneficial on multiple levels um and i think the biggest challenge we have is maybe not the specific projects for per se but like how do we build this into our systems that seem so antiquated against this type of of work um the only the only other thing i'd add i think to andra's point is you know i think it'd be helpful for us to think through you know based on you know there's all these strategies some of which are more applicable to our area or just specific parts of our area than others like i think about green roofs for example like most of the green roofs locally maybe umass or somewhere else excluded where there's a lot of concrete areas in a small in a small area is just for decoration and not really that that's not where we would necessarily want to spend our money um given that we're not in an urban urban environment you could correct me if i'm wrong but um so like really helping to identify what things we should if we're gonna try to include if one of our outcomes of our climate action plan is that we need to include green infrastructure into our zoning bylaws for example um how would we do that and what would be the most beneficial things for us to be looking at as as amherst jesse yeah yeah i i think to follow on both andrea and laura one of the things that's that i i don't think i understand but i i think our group maybe needs to understand is if there's gray and then there's green and then and maybe the next one is natural solutions and i think there's nature inspired but then there are our town has some interesting opportunities where there's we have both you know hardscape downtown and quite a bit of open space and some of our issues are just at low roads and and one of the and i just think to help us understand or if if part of what comes out of this is a a good public understanding of what natural solutions look like um in our town as far as maintaining and improving spaces and also the that level of cost the difference between green and natural that that cost in the sense of um one of the things that makes me nervous is heavy green infrastructure um and even the word infrastructure and what that connotes to people and and the cost fear that comes from that and how we manage um we're just increasingly as a as a society looking at all of our quote unquote best practices and long-term benefits but if if if we front load all of our costs for everything i think that's something that's triggering to to people in general so i think to to repeat myself amorous may have these great opportunities of natural solutions quite simply doing a better job at leveraging our our wild spaces for some of our solutions i know it's not going to work everywhere but i want to make sure that concept however gets in there yeah that's that's those are all great comments and just to to answer laura's laura's comments uh for question or potential assignment uh first so i think it it makes great sense that um at revisiting the zoning bylaws and we reviewed them quickly um like as to how we might incorporate um a stronger demand for low impact development and green infrastructure strategies for for one and then there's also another opportunity that is already there which is like through the um ms-4 permit that amorous as all the other communities in asachusetts are obliged to um to to apply with the epa requirements to reduce their combined sewer overflow and such have to incorporate more best management practices as to where to um take on additional stormwater runoff and um so this could be also tied into existing zoning bylaws and into a new development guidelines and bylaws as to um that the the first as like in hydrologic terms where we speak about the the first flush of rain which is like the first inch of rain and so they are the typical approaches that this needs to be taken on by the development itself so which could be done through green roofs um or it could be done through um with infrastructure strategies like on the site but the first inch of water needs to be infiltrated on on the site itself to not add add more stress to um to the to the stormwater and additionally to the combined sewer overflow and um yeah so that's that's like another example as to how that might be incorporated and we work with a lot of municipalities like helping them um with those MS4 requirements and helping them meet both the educational requirements as to educating people how they could um advance this and examples for this might be um just simply having rain um like rain barrels on site for for community members or um like how to install your rain garden in your in your garden and so there are like multiple ways as to how this could be done um and how how people might be excited about this to to do this on their own ground and I'm not going into the direction as to promoting a potential like standalone water um redistribution so some municipalities go down that route um but it's more like looking at what is already there what's the manable what do people what would people feel most likely to to incorporate already in their existing needs and it might also be just educating about composting and that um just flushing everything down the sinkerator um actually adds more like electricity and water use and all of this but if you have the space you can just um throw your compost um in your own garden it's a great education measure for the kids um and it it actually helps uh like the environment overall quite tremendously so yeah those those are some initial ideas as to how this could be um incorporated into the zoning bylaws and then also like as far as education goes um and so we have like a full package of materials that we'd be happy to to share and like how to get people excited about stormwater overall and what it actually is and such and so Jesse your question was more um like what is nature versus gray versus nature inspired or hybrid um green infrastructure measures and yes I totally agree so there are like seldom instances where it's like a clear cut which like either just green or just gray and and typically we come up with some hybrid approaches especially if we are like in in a in a denser environment or is like a lot of streetscape and so one example I pulled up here it's a tree box filter and and so it's kind of like incorporated into the existing um street grid and um it's it's one example how you can just make fire retention and also water quality work like in a in a densely settled environment and it goes even further as to those those infiltration practices we have here where you have like pipe system like running under underneath um like a densely built environment where uh where that kind of like takes care of first the just taking care of the first flush of rain filtering it and then um the rest then it will either be distributed to and recharge into the ground or the rest will be as you see here in these these pipes it it would go um into the system so this is this is a very sophisticated approach and I'm not suggesting this particularly for farmers but these are measures where you have like very limited space and you really need to come up with with some solutions permeable pavement is not really a green measurement per se but it's it it can be combined in a way that you have like the permeable paper on top and then a water quality crushed stone or some kind of treatment underneath so that the water sift through the forest pavement and then gets collected like underneath gets filtered and gets recharged so there's like all kinds of um hybrid measures that speaks to that green roofs um you already mentioned I think Darcy had a question all right go ahead you're muted Darcy sorry um I just had a question about the whole um one inch measure idea and how whether you've seen it applied um as a zoning measure in downtown areas municipal downtown areas and and I guess you talked a little bit about that but have you seen it as a as sort of a a requirement of developers in new new construction or how does that work yeah definitely and so it is actually a requirement for ms-4 communities like to infiltrate the first inch of rain that falls and like in highly dense urban settlements such as Cambridge and Boston so they are required to infiltrate the first one and a quarter inch of rain um on site and um so which is where um like it either either green roofs or a blue roofs get installed or where water is just captured and and taking off the the the regular process where it would just be discharged and and so it's kind of like infiltrated on site through various measures you know if the um if the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is required to do that are they exempted from that or um or like would you mass need to do that yes yeah it's uh it's a it's a requirement by the EPA so um all communities are required to do this that's interesting i have never heard of that yeah and so Amherst is an ms-4 community so um you are or your community is um is required to come up with a storm water management plan and um so which includes best management practices which are typically like green infrastructure measures so i have not seen um the dms-4 plan that that Amherst has we'd be happy to look at that and help out and maybe advise on some measures that might make most sense um but yes definitely you but your community is required to do that you're saying that the municipality and the state are required to do it on their buildings but are are is there any requirement of doing it on private development um okay i would need to go back and check that i'm yeah let me get back to you on that i'd be interested to know if well if cambridge you said that some some cities have been been was re requiring that for their downtown development i'm just i'm interested to know if like cities are size i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure that it's it applies we call it there's nothing on the web our website about it um it says amherst is working to implement a five-year storm water management program required by the phase two ms-4 general permit phase two local governments are required to develop and implement a storm water management program that includes the six measures six measures public education and outreach public involvement of participation elicit discharge detection and elimination construction site storm water runoff control post construction storm water management for new development and redevelopment and prevention prevention good housekeeping for municipal operations so it sounds like we need to just confirm that that includes private development private development it's probably not i don't know i it really does need to be in the zoning code um for it to to be effectuated i think uh deafening were you gonna say something i had something i i'm curious about your your process um i assume that you you read the um preparatory materials that the staff and our staff um created for our first mvp whatever it's called the first the planning stage um we we have a real expert in dpw the assistant director of dpw right stefanie who's a storm water specialist and she talked a lot about at that stage um the the you know the the aging storm water system and and how much is is needed for for that and and how hard it is to put money into it but when people are complaining about puggles um so i'm i'm assuming that you're gonna talk with staff and and get recommendations and from them i mean i don't feel like we're the ones to kind of decide what projects um but have input obviously but i i think this is a lot of staff input is needed yeah so for sure we reviewed the mvp report that was together and we also referenced this in our presentation since it's like all the hazard areas that were called out are like highly linked to like water uh threats either being too much or too little and so which is where wide rain infrastructure makes so much sense um and we had a first um conversation with gulfard uh the superintendent of the town and so discussed like our like the scope of work and like as we're looking at water or storm water um infrastructure um and also wastewater obviously as well but also transportation and so we had a like an hour conversation with them as to like what his assessment of the situation in amherst would be and um what his thoughts are on potentially using like a watershed based approach um that would look at the watershed or like his water is more like as a holistic resource and um he actually brought up a a funny term um which refers to the the scorpion bowl the drink the scorpion bowl where you have like the the drink being your your water resource and then you have like all the participants like having straws and everybody is just enjoying the drink and so he referred to this as being like the the scorpion bowl um being the water resource in amherst and um we we touched on the fact that in 2016 there was a drought um and as we know this summer we also had drought conditions in massachusetts despite that it rained quite a bit um and so which just underlines the the importance of treating water as a resource holistically and um that you just can't like take or take sips from your scorpion bowl and not recharge it not refill it so to say um but yeah so where where's the water recharge from if it's just spent if it's just used for irrigation and and all this so we we we touched on this with with gilford and uh we made some recommendations on like that green infrastructure majors um might make sense for particular areas in town and like another item we also reviewed was the the updated femur for maps and i put a link on this to listen to the presentation as well because i thought it was interesting as to that well as we know we're seeing higher precipitation and more storm storm fall more rainwater like you see the increase here and in this graphic um and and we know that the the femur firm rate maps are just based on the past so they are not actually um representing the current conditions or the future conditions that that's just not what they do but we already see just this femur update on more accurate um um location surveys show us here in the green um compartments that there has been like added uh added floodplains within within the city so my thinking there were also with respect to these might be an interesting um comparison analysis as to looking at so where the changes um where have floodplains been added and in some instances they actually touch on residential property so i'm yeah i'm not making any recommendations right now but i'm i'm saying it might definitely make sense to take a very closer look at this and evaluate like where where things are at and if there might be a need to potentially incorporate this into like some updated zoning bylaws or um just maybe an overlay district which is like another measure that is that is done and in other instances great we're gonna um maybe spend one or two more minutes and then transfer for over it's been the last half hour on the task group prep for next time are there any other um questions for isabel i don't have a question so much as a comment in response to andro's last comment about um you know that this is more of a staff project i i would say that this is really something that um really does concern this group in terms of resiliency um it's a primary resiliency response and i think you've had amy rusecki who is the assistant superintendent of dpw at the task group meetings she's attended two out of the three so far for her group and um she's been engaged and involved and i think if this were one of the proposed implementation items that was presented i think it would be really useful because she's there and she's been engaged and it would be good to get her feedback and her involvement in the discussion around this and um in support of this so i i don't think it's just something that just comes from staff i think it's something that is at the very least a recommendation for the town to look at within the plan as a resiliency measure and maybe just one more um item to add to this and that maybe just ties into the actually the first question andra had on cost benefits and um like another benefit of green infrastructure is that it's not just like looking at climate adaptation so it's not just um fixing um and and taking taking up additional flood but it's also climate mitigation uh measurement uh with respect to that uh lumbic development and those moralistic water cycle approaches like feeding back to the water cycle um they actually prevent um like additional water pumping to waste water to water needs because it's green infrastructure mimics this natural cycle and and so yeah so it has like less electricity costs because you need to pump water less to as it becomes wastewater and a detrimental byproduct so i forgot to mention that earlier but um yeah you would definitely need to factor that in and since this is the climate adaptation and mitigation plan i think it's worthwhile stressing that um this green infrastructure can be a solution for both and it can also incorporate it into the street scrape um so i had a couple of slides in there in the presentation that talk to that it can be incorporated like even in a when you have like a narrow streetscape and um so it's just a matter of what you want to do what you want to achieve it's not either or um you can have both you can have green and complete streets more walkable and bikeable and buy that even encouraging more pedestrian and and and biking so it's it's just a very cool tool all around i i put in like 10 votes for projects that do both mitigation and adaptation yeah i think that's where our climate action plan i mean i think we've talked about this from the beginning right like how do we make our climate action plan something that has teeth so that then we can say okay this is what we're doing like now you need to before we invest in a infrastructure project we need to first look and see are there natural solutions or other things that we should be that's our first approach and then there may not always be that may not always be the case but we're trying to flip the paradigm right like instead of bringing in green infrastructure as like a nice to have add-on like first this is what we're doing and then worst case scenario maybe we're just replacing this storm drain because that's the best we can do at the moment but and so i think we need to think about as we're working on our plan how to to make sure it supports that um and supports Amy and and her team in being able to push back against funding issue you know push back against like what would be their barriers to implementing some of this stuff how can our plan help support them in that yeah right and one approach about this maybe just to um to look at pilot projects like what projects might be useful and where you already have like a program that you could tie this into another approach um that we did in Northampton for the MVP action grant was to to look at 10 sites and those would be selected sites like either within the floodplain or downtown so where you have like different different strategies and then look at those closer and come up with strategies for like what would make most sense in those specific areas and and then depending on where we want to go but for my understanding the the purpose of this plan is also to kind of like identify action items that are ready to go with the next grand round so that could definitely be done by by looking at either pilot projects or specific site areas and like also working with the with staff obviously what they want and what they recommend um but to propose something to move forward so those might be some logical ideas that could go great thank you this has been really helpful um welcome we'll of course work with Jim and Lauren on on next steps with all of that um and you're welcome to stay for the rest of the conversation or you're welcome to hop off yeah i think i i think i'll i'll join my family for dinner shortly um okay great so much i really find they're really helpful thank you sorry thank you don't forget thank you very much thank you very much screen screening and um oh here we go stop share there we go all right yeah let let me know if you have any other questions we're happy to work with jim and and lauren so thank you all bye all right so um just quickly um um on the agenda just want to which i can't find right now but there there is an agenda item on communication that's something we talked about last week um or last time i think stefany is going to invite uh brie to join us for a future meeting to sort of talk about the website communication and how we how we do all that is that right stefany yeah okay so we just put it on there since we talked about it last time but we're gonna have a more in-depth discussion when when she can join us um so then let's go to test groups um lauren or jim yeah sure i can jump in um so update on follow-up from the first the last round of task groups we are working on compiling all of the notes right now and those should be ready to send out at the beginning of next week um we also have uh well stefany kindly passed along the poll to help me with scheduling the next round of meetings so thank you to everyone who has filled that out already and if you haven't you know who you are um so please try to fill that out um by tomorrow because i am out on friday i'm moving up to portland main and i would love to be able to get them scheduled before i have to do that so thank you very much um so looking ahead to the now we are looking at those last two weeks in september as you've seen if you have taken the poll already and we're going to do our best to try to spread the meetings out over those two weeks just because having four meetings in a week is a bit intense for those of us who are at all of the meetings um but yeah well we'll do our best because we're aware of some some holidays and things that are happening um around that time as well so um in terms of figuring out agendas and um and nailing those down i think we'll go with a similar process to what we've been doing so far um where we'll put together a draft based on the conversations that have happened already and um focusing on the implementation pathways as we've been saying so that's going to look a little bit different for each of the groups but um definitely just going to be focused on um furthering the conversations that we've already been having and making sure that we're bringing in anything that we um have missed that we want to be part of the task groups um so that should be coming to you all ideally by the end of next week um and then we can do the back and forth and comments and feedback and getting the the co-chairs um involved in thinking through what the agenda will look like so um that's what the next sort of week or so will look like from our end and if folks have any questions or any thoughts that they want to communicate before we dive into that um please just yeah let me know or shoot Stephanie an email or um however is the easiest way to do that and do you want to add anything yeah no you guys should be pretty down with this by now yeah we're becoming pros now round three it's going to be yeah is um remind me Lauren sorry is there a do we have another eCAC meeting before the next task group meeting or is it that same week it might be that same week um it will depend on when the meetings actually get scheduled whether there's an eCAC meeting before um some of the task groups but the first week that we're looking at there's an eCAC meeting that week so some meetings might happen before that meeting others might happen after it yeah any concerns there Laura no i was just wondering um yeah of course um all right you will note in the survey that it avoids that Wednesday yes i did notice that so then when i started asking the question i realized that um do folks have any comments or reflections from their past task group meetings or maybe you think thoughts they want to make things they want to make sure we cover in our task group three meeting um if thoughts pop into your head like i said please feel free to pass them along i'd like to hear from the building's task force how number two went that's exactly what i just wanted to say and if i could if you don't if you sarah and you jesse don't mind i just want to say like what an incredibly wonderful job you did with your presentation personally from our perspective it was amazing and i've been in touch with it and they were able to um section out that presentation so it might need to be tweaked a little bit um possibly but i don't know i'm going to send it to lauren i don't know we can sort of follow up but in any case we've isolated it as a presentation a standalone presentation that everyone can use and it was really fantastic yeah and so we'll send that out as part of the follow-up when we send out the notes and um the sort of save the date for the next meetings as well that'd be great if you don't uh if you didn't hear about it uh they did this lovely tag team thing where sarah was talking and jesse was drawing in these really cute drawings sort of with all these things that illustrated what sarah was talking about it was really quite lovely that's very cool jesse did the heavy lifting on that for my behalf but you did an awesome job in presenting it was fantastic and and jesse your pictures were great i love them i loved your drawings i thought they were really fantastic uh thank you i i i think yeah no i give sarah and i in minutes to prepare and we can do anything um the group was smaller and um so everyone had a little more time to talk and i think in general that felt good to the task to the members of the task group for what it's worth i don't know how we can use that information but that that was my takeaway is everyone just had a little more time uh to add to the conversation and i think the conversation was getting increasingly concrete which i think has worked well for people's brains yeah that's sort of the plan in general is that as we move along through these even within the single meeting but then as we move further along that the things get more concrete to get more real uh and so that allows people to to kind of feel them more and understand them you know what they really are like and what effects they have more well you you were worried um after the first one whether people were going to come back so the fact that it was smaller was that good and bad yeah so my understanding and i don't know everything and igazi ka is not here to report on that maybe lauren or jim you know but my understanding was that there was con scheduling conflicts yeah and it wasn't necessarily that people had given up on the process um yeah we had one community leader who um was pulled into a work training literally that day so they were just unable to make it um for work reasons and another community leader who had a child care emergency i believe so it wasn't anything to do with um not wanting to be there it was just ex extenuating circumstances and they were there for sort of as long as they could handle um and i think that's this is one of those things that all of us have uh you know all of us have schedule silliness which is sort of always an issue but that particular set of couple of weeks was was one where like if there was going to be trouble in people's schedules was going to happen then uh so i think that's kind of what happened for uh for that group which is too bad we essentially had no community leaders in that in that uh meeting which was unfortunate i mean we had we had one for the first yeah i mean it's your something yeah it was it was a voice that was lacking although i have to say gazi kaya i believe she is an incredible voice and representative um of the community and i felt like she just continued to do to be that in our meeting as she always has so but it was it was it was it was an it was definitely absent and i and i so les hasn't had its pros and cons we didn't talk about necessarily that topic in the same way which i think is too bad and if the meeting was yeah it's a good point working hard to make sure that there are no scheduling conflicts for community leaders for the next round um so hopefully we'll have everyone this time um of course there are just some things that we can't predict but we're going to do our best yeah darsie um i know i brought this up at the last meeting but um i am interested in figuring out what vehicle we're going to use as acac c ourselves to put forward our priorities uh our our our you know our our own suggestions for what we want for actions for our different sector groups so it seems like this is the time when the like the co-hosts of each sector group should be putting together their own lists and getting them ready to put forward either to the group in the third meeting or just generally to all of us in some context um it just seems like you know we're it's going to be october very soon and we're supposed to be coming up with these priority actions by the end of december so um seems like this is the time to be doing that other ecac members do you have thoughts about that and if not what what i i guess i feel like uh you know when are we when are we putting in our um desires about the plan lanaean when do you can you speak to how you want that so um in a couple ways one i think uh that uh hopefully you've been doing that some of that especially in the last meeting right that you were bringing particular ideas to the um to the group that were uh that you thought were important and played it will play a big role and certainly the renewables group did a really great job of that and i think these guys did as well um and uh and then in the next one we'll have an opportunity to do even more of that so again if you have things that you think are really important you need to be in there that those are going to we're going to want to be able to talk about them uh and then as we get to sort of wrapping up that the task group process uh there will be a lot of things that don't get touched on i mean i was i was just thinking about you know you were talking about zoning earlier and ordinances and stuff and it's like yeah we're probably not going to get a lot to ordinances in some of these but we might um uh ordinance is pretty uh pretty um thick it's a thick topic and um and that i think that there will be an opportunity as we start to frame the the sort of the report structure out of this process that there's going to be a yet another opportunity for committee members to say okay well these are the six things that i think really need to be there how how are they in and how do they fit in that framework uh and how do they fit relative to the work that the task groups put together so you have there will be plenty of opportunities to to do that both in the task group meeting that's coming up and then uh in the sort of the next process of framing the the actual report um i mean kind of expecting you to do a lot a lot of framing actually so so it sounds like we should be presenting whatever actions that are on our lists at the next meeting yeah you want to present the most important ones uh really think you're most important well concord started out with a list of 200 that they then whittled down um so i don't know do we are we we're kind of taking a different approach we're coming in at the other direction uh we're starting with principles and key important things and then growing the process as opposed to starting with a giant tree of things and picking leaves off it uh hey we didn't really discuss that at any point i guess i would also just add my my um concern i guess uh moving forward is that we also want a plan that we can demonstrate gets to our targets um that we've committed ourselves to in the town and so i think there's a lot of quantitative work that needs to go on in terms of actually quantifying what these actions might result in in terms in terms of actually greenhouse gas reductions which is what we're after at the end of the day um and obviously in a lot of decisions along the way um uh in terms of policy and so forth so um you know i see these task force these task force meetings have been really helpful to get um conversations going with the community um some semblance of buy-in or or um understanding concerns um and developing a base of support community support which will be critical for us but at the same time it's been kind of short at least in our group in terms of well um uh where where do these ideas actually get us to in terms of greenhouse gas reductions in a quantitative uh sort of sense which is what we'll need um and uh and some issues with regard to and i'm always bringing up but you know i mean you know renewables uh do we count them if we don't buy the recs you know uh and and so forth um uh and uh and are we um you know are we getting all this energy from uh just within the confines of amherst or beyond and so forth so um those were things we started discussing a bit in the in the task force meeting but i am eager to sort of get into um some specifics and sort of quantitative analysis to see where the path where the plan to assure that the plan is getting us to where we need it to get us to and doing on that last note that's actually something that came up quite a bit in the land use um task group meetings as well um around renewable sightings so we definitely have a lot of feedback related to that that we will be incorporating um alongside the the uh things that have been coming out of the renewable great oh sorry i mean i think to me you're you're touching on exactly what we need the task group meetings to do and what they won't be able to do like we're not going to be able to use a task group meeting to quantify potential mission reductions nor Darcy are we going to be able to use a task group meeting to say okay here's five things let's vote on our top one um so i think that's something that we'll have to do as ecac together with lean once we finish our sort of the task group process or not even once we finish we could start it now but like taking those the list of ideas that we have from our previous meetings in our previous work and overlaying them with the principles that we've laid out from our task group meetings i think my question is how do we bring it all together um and so maybe we should think about what the ecac meeting after our last task group meeting could look like to really help us understand sort of how that worked in what were the kind of what's the framing that has come out at each of the work of the work groups and how do we bring them together do we need to bring them together like what what that and then how do we sort of start that next process of really narrowing out because another thing i know our group really wants is some very actionable um short term early early early actions yeah um can i just say that um i think that's a great um uh conversation for a next meeting um and i need to be leading a zoom call at 6 30 so i got to jump off wait one meeting and then do it because we're going to need time to put it together yeah yeah yeah that's fine um okay by both of you um is that our quorum yeah so i think we have to end our meeting now um so for the next meeting my suggestion is let's see how if people want to send agenda items i also want to see how the task group meetings get scheduled um and we can talk about we can kind of overlay ecac meetings with that to figure out when we would have this discussion and what we would talk about before then um if that makes sense and i love that idea of having a framing meeting but i i do just just give us a little bit of time to put all the stuff together yeah that that and then if there's specific things that you all think we need to be doing right now please let us know because then that can be what we talk about at the next meeting or homework we can give to ourselves yeah okay we've lost our notetaker and our quorum so we are going to good night i know Darcy Darcy's the notetaker sorry i thought dwing was for some reason last time yeah um and also you know i can get information out to the group so lene and folks and i will meet and if there's stuff that you know they identify we can get it out right away to members yeah and some of that has already come out you've been getting a steady stream of things over the last couple of meetings including a whole thing about energy democracy and the project that umass is working on that we were talking about today and a couple of other things i mean so there's there's plenty of material that is in your reading list to keep track of to integrate into the planning okay great all right well thanks everybody um and we will talk soon bye laura thanks everybody thank you all good night