 And we are now recording you have a quorum. Hey, hi folks, I will be chairing in bus who's actions today. One quick announcement if there are no objections we're going to put the the solar assessment discussion with GZA before the progress reports since Stella's not here today. So as long as that's okay with you, we'll go ahead and do that. It's fine with me. All right. So to start off, I'll do what Vasu usually does and just share. Quickly, our vision and charge. And remind everybody, let's see, can you all see that? No, we can. You can. Okay. Just remind everyone that our goals are to make recommendations. Our goals and our charge or to make recommendations to town council to help the town. Help the town. As it transitions. In a just environmentally just way to a greenhouse gas free. Future. To do this, we have. Divided ourselves into five groups or five individuals working on different aspects of this from heat pumps. Larger region and state issues. Solar issues, transportation and see pace, which is aimed at. A larger. Multi-family units and, and buildings, larger buildings. Okay. And with that. Let's take a review of the minutes. I can. Share them. I think. I just dragged them onto this screen. I think. You should be able to see the minutes from last time. If there are any comments. Who is up for taking minutes today? Ah, good question. I believe it's me and I preempted everything. I've started already. Confirm. Champion minute taker. I have high stakes here. All right, I will continue. Okay. So if there's any comments on the minutes. Stephanie, is it required that we. Vote on minutes or can we do a, what's it called a consensus sort of thing where as long as there's no objections, we adopt it. We adopt the minutes. As our. Typically we take a voice vote. So I don't know about that for the minutes. Okay. So is there. We need more time to look at this or is there a move to. Accept the minutes. Are there any changes? I've moved to accept the minutes. Sauce change. Is there a second. Was that Selman. Yeah. And roof seconds. Okay. So I'm going to do a voice vote in no particular order. Roof. Yes. Rose. I'll come back to you, Andrew. Breger. Yes. Yes. Rose. Yes. Goldner. Yes. Allison. Stain. Selman. Yes. Drucker. Upstain. So minutes passed with two abstentions. Okay. So I'm going to do a voice vote in no particular order. Roof. Yes. Rose. I'll come back to you, Andrew. Breger. Yes. Okay. Two abstentions. Okay. So I think we are up to the public comment time. And oh, looks like we have. We have. We have quite a few attendees. So. Shall we open it up for public comment? How do we, how do we do that, Stephanie? So, if anyone has. A desire to ask a question or speak to the. Committee, please digitally raise your hand and I will allow you to speak. Okay. It does not look like there are any questions or comments at this time. Perhaps at the end. Okay. So now we're going to skip to the solar assessment. I think we have a Steven leco here. Is that am I pronouncing it incorrectly? And Adrian. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to give you an email. I'm going to give you an email. You are one moment. And I will. Share my screen. Excellent. And everyone see. Oh, there we go. You can see the PowerPoint as the full screen. Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Thank you for having us. We are working on the town of Amherst. Townwide solar assessment. I'm Adrian dunk. I'm the project manager on this project. I've worked in solar across Massachusetts from a. Sighting perspective and also. Wetlands and natural resources. Steven leco is also on the call with us today and he is the principal in charge of this project. He is a planner. And he'll be kind of guiding some of our, our work here. And then also a key player on our project team is Jacqueline Claver here at GCA. And she is a GIS. Specialist. So she will be doing. The actual data analysis and geospatial data. Procurement. And so I like to think about this project kind of in three phases. We're in the first phase right now, which is gathering data. We are gathering feedback from you. From the solar bylaw working group, the town government. And then also through direct public parts. Participation. And the goal of that is to really understand. What questions the community has and how we can provide information to answer them. And so that that's, that's what we'll do in our second and third phases of the project, which is the second one is mapping. And so our goal is to have an interactive map based tool that can be used to identify where solar could be feasible in the town. And so that is going to be looking largely at. What existing regulations allow. And then also looking at physical constraints. Across the town. And specifically kind of as we've been discussing and refining what this, this end product may look like. We've really clarified around the topic that. GZ is doing an analytical exercise to provide information on the feasibility of solar, but not necessarily the suitability. So we're really going to stay out of some of those values based decision making about, would we like it. On this type of land or that type of land, would we like it at this scale or that scale? We're really going to be trying to provide. Just information on what could be done and leave the town entities to decide and guide what should be done. So paired with that map will be a report. And that report is going to be used to characterize the data, what the data says, what the data means. And kind of how it can be used in future decision making. And so today our goal is to present to you all. Some of our initial questions that we are going to use. To kickstart our coordination with the town department heads. We definitely want community input throughout this process. And so right now we're hoping for some guidance from you all. So that we have a really productive meeting with our town department heads. So we do ask that if you have questions or feedback on the questions we've put together that you send that information through Stephanie, we'll compile it and deal with any, if there's conflicting recommendation, she'll kind of sort that all out and get it to us. We also do ask that if you wish to respond to the questions. That's great. They may be applicable to you, they may not, but if you wish to respond now, again, just send that through writing to Stephanie and she will make sure we get it. So, again, we're at this beginning data gathering phase. So we would like to start working with the town and the department heads to understand their, what they're excited about and also their concerns relative to solar development. So we have five questions that they would rate strongly disagree to strongly agree that, that largely have to do with their familiarity with solar, their understanding about solar targets in town. And then if they are comfortable using a mapping tool, if they would use this in their work. And then we have five more free form questions where they can expand on those topics. And we're really hoping to use this to help guide our conversation and make sure that this final mapping tool that we develop is broadly useful. So I think at this time, if anyone has questions on the mission of the project or anything related to that, we'd be happy to discuss. I see Steve Roof has a hand up. Yes. Thank you. What after you get the questions, the responses back from town staff, what can you tell us what the next steps would be and how these their answers to these questions would direct your next steps. Yes, yes. So we are going to have a meeting, a virtual meeting with the town department heads. And so their answers to these questions will help us identify, you know, who's really critical to work with versus who's maybe happy to be informed about the project, but doesn't need to be engaged actively. So it'll kind of allow us to see the key players and it will also allow us to, you know, we'll better understand the sentiment within the town. In terms of it, there's really specific concerns related to feasibility that we should be considerate of or, you know, planned improvements in town. If there's going to be infrastructure improvements, maybe we should take those into account as we develop our model. So that's our plan for implementing. And these are going to be sent to the department heads. How many department heads are in the town of Amherst staff? I think there's about, I want to say 13 or 14. Okay. So department heads, but not employees working under these department heads. Is that right? Not at this stage. Okay. Even though some of those employees may be at sort of the. The nuts and bolts stage of developing. Yeah, typically what will happen. I mean. The staff that's involved with that are aware of all of this and are being informed as we go along, but also. Typically if a department head is working directly with their staff on these issues, they will forward them to their staff to get their feedback and incorporate them in their response. Thank you. You're welcome. I see Laura, your hand is up. Yeah. Thank you for the presentation. It sounds like the plan you have as a good one. I think the last point you made about. Other infrastructure projects happening. I think that's a really important question. I don't see where that's included on these questions yet. So I don't know if that needs to be. Additional question. Yeah, I think that's certainly something we would as we facilitate a conversation with them. We'll get there, but these are kind of the screening questions before we discuss. Okay. And then a file or a second question is. I understand. I think that would be helpful to. Sort of. Reason it would be helpful to. Get the answers to those two. So in the blue box, the first two questions. But that seems to go a little bit counter to what you said previously where you were like, we're just showing you where solar is available. We're not commenting on. Sort of the political feasibility of solar. And then we'll get to the next question. I think that's a really confusing message. Yeah. No, I understand what you're saying there. I think in terms of asking concerns and excited, it's very possible. We'll get many comments and responses that are more on that political side. But we might get some. We do want to keep these broad and open ended so that. People have the opportunity to raise. Concerns. And then we'll get to the next question. And then we'll get to the next question. What is your radar? So. I think we'll definitely couch these when we send them to the department heads. Kind of how I did to you guys about that, that feasibility aspect only. But I do want these questions. They're intentionally somewhat broad. To solicit a wide range of feedback. Yeah. So I think we're gonna be talking about this. We'll. Exercise that we're going to be doing. So just because somebody says, for example, I don't want to see any solar on agricultural fields. As a response to one of these questions. Or as a concern, I mean, we're going to note that. But our analysis is going to be. Purely. Objective. something like that, if they're going to be shown as a potential solar development. But that doesn't, then that that GIS information is going to be given to, you know, the town and then the town's going to make its own decisions as as to like the solar bi-law group is going to make their own decisions as to how they craft regulations to regulate these things. And I think, too, some of the things like, you know, what am I most or what are concerns relative to the solar development that, you know, the department heads might have a unique perspective on maybe have to do with workload or traffic in town or some some other aspect that isn't necessarily on our radar from a values based perspective, but it might be on like, Oh, well, we need more building inspectors if we're going to do rooftop. So to get some of that information to help broaden the discussion with you guys in the solar bi-law working group so that the town feels kind of prepared to move forward. I see. Andra has her head up. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. So it seems to me that it would be useful to know to have them reflect on not just themselves, but also, you know, members of their staff on the staff familiarity with solar, as well as, you know, I understand that the, you know, maybe it's just a wording thing, how many solar development in town change your resources or work responsibilities human or physical, well, department heads physical responsibilities probably aren't going to change but their staffs will. So it might just be a wording thing. Yeah, I think that's that's a really good point. And we do we want to ask not just about the self about the about the department and the team. Thank you. Other questions? Steve. Yeah, I guess I have questions about next steps and Lori or Stephanie, you can punt this to another time if you think it's appropriate. But I'm curious about the GCA involvement under that first square gather the direct part public participation and in broad strokes what that public participation may look like. And will that be trying to get at the sentiment across town of the suitability of solar that value judgment aspect? So in our contract, we have included efforts to do broad outreach across town includes developing survey, translation services, and then for that survey, sending out mailings about it hosting it online, and then also in person and virtual public participation workshops. So that's kind of the the general scope of that public participation. Currently, it can be refined as we move closer to it. Stephanie, do you want to jump in? I see your hand up. Yeah, thanks. I don't want to go off course. No, that was great. No, I think so the reason why this was included in their scope of work was because we wanted an independent body to gather that information. And we've had this discussion with the solar bylaw working group to who is also very keen on doing outreach and guiding outreach, but we are very clear the town wants it to be as independent outreach as possible, and that that information would then be shared with the respective committees. So ECAC and solar bylaw working group will certainly have an opportunity to review the materials that will be going out to the public to weigh in on if there's something, you know, additional, but the idea is really to keep it an independent and not biased approach to outreach. If that is clear. So if I can summarize, it sounds like like GZA will be collecting the information needed to make that value judgment, but not themselves making any sort of judgment. That's of course up to the town. Correct. And that information will be reflected in the report, not on the mapping, but on the in the report. Okay. I like to think of it as we're here to listen to what your questions are, what the solar bylaw groups questions are, and then gather information that can be used to answer those questions, but that we're not going to be answering them directly in terms of you know, recommendations. All right. Are there any other questions at this time? All right. Wonderful. Well, we look forward to working with you all. We will certainly be back again in the future to continue coordinating. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Adrienne and Steven. Okay. So next on the agenda then is going back to the where to go to the updates or the reports rather, where did I put it? I lost it. Oh, dear. Looks like I accidentally there. Just the progress reports. Seapace and still is not here. So we won't have the transportation update today, but can we get an update on the seapace? Sure. Yeah, that would be me. And it's it's going to be very brief. I did finally. Oh, I apologize. My office phone is ringing and I don't know how to mute it. So I'm kind of technologically challenged. Oh, here we go. No. Yeah, did it. There's a little button, obviously, with a microphone in it across it. So it worked in any event. I don't have a lot to report. I did manage to finally actually visit not physically, but crossing emails connect with Claudia. Has money at at the chamber and she and I will be meeting next week so I can solicit input from her. You know, in the business community in moving forward with any sort of availability or implementation of a seapace program. I do intend, although my schedule got pretty crowded to get together or to communicate with Stephanie about then the next step we've talked about in my last report, which is putting together some sort of. Not flyer, but some sort of information sheet to be available at Town Hall for individuals who are seeking applications for building permits. I've also reached out to bid but twice, but haven't heard back from her. So maybe Claudia will be able to connect me with the head of bid. That's that's really all I have to report. Laurie, you're muted. Sorry, any questions for Don or other input on the seapace project? I just wonder if Laura and Steve, who each interviewed, you know, either the chamber person or the bid person in way back ancient times, if you might be able to help with Don with reaching out. I did not meet the bid person. I interviewed other people in town way back then. OK, and Jesse? I I know Mrs. Bid and that I could pop downstairs and and and say and ask if if they might look to your emails. I think I'd be very comfortable making that that move if that's OK. I think Don just said he has a meeting. I'll cuddle though. I do with Claudia at the chamber, but not with. Oh, OK, this bid. And for some reason, it took a while for Claudia to get back to me. She apologized. She, you know, I guess with vacation schedules and stuff, my emails to her went to some dark place, but she did find them and responded. And she and I have now emailed back and forth to set up a time next week. But I love it, Jesse. If you could help me connect with the head of bid. Yeah, I'll stick my head in there tomorrow. OK, lunch. Just for the minutes, what's Claudia's last name? Pazmani, P-A-Z-M-A-N-Y. Got you. Thank you. Anyone else comments, questions? OK, in that case, I think I'm sorry I have my hand up. Oh, I'm sorry. That's OK. I just wanted to say to that I could also do a virtual introduction online, if that would be helpful as a follow up. So if Jesse, you want to stick your head in and then I'll do a virtual in that way, it just emphasizes that we're really trying to make a connection. That'd be great. Sure. Right. Anyone else? OK, in that case, on to number six, which I think the staff updates, I guess that would be me. And I feel like right now is one of those busy times of the year where Green Communities Report is due. It just seems like there's a lot of different projects going on. So I don't really have anything. And I apologize. I don't have anything prepared. For tonight. But I guess if you have any specific questions of any specific work that's going on, the Solar By-law Working Group, I'm sure Dwayne will give an update on that at some point. So I would leave that to him rather than coming from me. But, you know, efforts are moving along. I will say that I put together and I will share this with the group. I just wanted to wait till I had it reviewed by folks here in Town Hall. But I put together the allocations for the FY23 sustainability budget. I put together a spreadsheet of those allocations. And that was a result of some capital projects that are moving forward with various departments, some of which we were going to try to apply for green communities funding for. And I think I said at the last meeting we weren't able to apply for the Green Communities Grant because the consultant did not get us our information in time, which was sort of frustrating, but at the same time might be OK because what we would really like to move towards is moving Town Hall off fossil fuels and getting a heat pump system. And so I've reached out to Ben Weil at UMass, who is willing to meet with us to sort of put something together and to sort of identify the appropriate technology for Town Hall. Ben's a bit of a wizard if you don't know him. He's pretty amazing. So even our building commissioner said, yes, I absolutely want to be on that meeting because Ben is amazingly interesting to listen to. So so I'm excited actually about that. So even though we're not applying for green communities funding this time, we will shoot for the spring round. If for some reason it's not going to be ready for spring, it will definitely be ready for the fall application round. So it's coming. But again, we'd really like to make Town Hall so to be the first fossil fuel free building in town. Questions for Stephanie? Other comments? I have a question. Go ahead, Andrew. So I'd like to just hear just maybe I know, but maybe we don't know what you're reporting on green community funds. What if they can use it's just an it's an annual report. It's just an update of where we are with our energy efficiency in town. When you when you sign up to become a green community, the goal is to have a 20 percent reduction in energy use below your baseline year, which when you apply to become a green community, you lay it all out and it seems like there it is. And that's how you can do it. And it's been very challenging for many communities, Northampton included, to be able to reach that target goal because things change, technology changes, various factors change. You know, over time, when you're actually trying to even implement your projects, they don't necessarily achieve the goals that you've set out in the beginning. So the annual report is basically just to sort of update the state for the state to kind of keep tab somewhere. Communities are with their energy efficiency goals. So that's it's just a, you know, an annual reporting requirement. It's what keeps us in quote unquote good standing and allows us to apply for funding. So if I don't submit the report on time, then we can't apply for funding for spring or the fall. So if we didn't have a green communities grant recently, right, right, then is it pretty much the same as the last annual report? No, not necessarily, because things change, use changes. I mean, it could be that one year you don't meet the goals in the next year you might or, you know, it's just a sort of a way to track our efficiency from year to year. So I'm just wondering, sort of following up with Andrew, does the report appear anywhere on the website or anything like that? Is it something we can we can just look at or? No, I can certainly share it, make it part of a packet when it's completed and it's been accepted. I don't want to post it until it's been accepted. Sure, OK. Because sometimes there are things like there's additional questions they have about certain things. And that I will give you a heads up that sometimes that is months after you've submitted. So I have had instances where I might submit in November, but the questions don't even come to me until February or March. And so, you know, it can be quite a bit of a gap in time before that happens. Is there like a summary chart or something? There is. But, you know, again, I wouldn't because sometimes there are even changes to that. So I wouldn't submit it until I know it's been approved by Green communities. And now, Steve, I think you had a question. Yeah, on a different topic, Stephanie, I'm had to ask this the last couple of meetings, but it always slipped my mind. Is there any progress with the family outreach plan to do that tenant outreach supported by the Empower grant? Yes, we and not hugely so. But I would say the contract is finally getting to the point where we like we've had to revise it a couple of times when family outreach has taken a look. There have been things that they want to change. And then the procurement officer was out of the office for like a week. So we we've had a bit of back and forth. And a lot of it's been around timing of, you know, either family outreach contact person isn't available or then our procurement isn't available. I wasn't available. So it's really taken some time. But I think we finally got the contract in shape. And in fact, I just had communication about it with the procurement officer today. And she's going to get it out to me, I think, tomorrow. And I will send it along to Family Outreach, but then they have to get it. Her reviewed and signed on their end. And it's because it's not family outreach themselves that sign. It's their parent organization that signs, so which is why we had to sort of make some adjustments adjustments to like we were originally identifying monthly billing. They would prefer quarterly billing. It was like those kinds of details that kept, you know, getting adjusted and changed. So I'm glad it's moving forward like it's moving forward. Yes, me too. And you're muted. All right, just for the minute. What's the name of that organization, the family? Family Outreach of Amherst. Gotcha. Cool. OK. Well, then I had another independent, separate question. And I believe Stephanie, the solar on the landfill is in operation. Is that true? It is. It actually has gone live. And we're just working to schedule the ribbon cutting event, but it is live. OK. Yeah, it's pretty. It feels very surreal to me, but it's finally live. It's like almost a career achievement for you. Oh, it most certainly is not almost. It is for sure. Don't retire now. Is there a public portal that we can see production from that? I don't know that it's yet. I don't know that we've done that yet. I mean, I think that was one of the things we had talked about. And I'll have to thank you for reminding me about that, Steve, because we had talked about it at one point. I just don't know. I'm making a note now. I've kind of forgotten about that piece. What the reason I ask is that in my experience, managing the systems at Hampshire College is I have to watch the production of those systems and if something happens, the company running it doesn't necessarily know. So like I have to monitor and then if something doesn't work right, I have to let the company know and then they'll fix it fairly quickly. But they're not always monitoring as fast as they perhaps should be. Hopefully, the town has a company that's more on top of that. But I would personally just love to look at the output and study it. Yeah, I will ask about that. Steve, I'll follow up. OK, thank you. I'm all done with questions. I rest my case. Anyone else? Anna has her hand up. Oh, yes, Sondra. Um, I. Oh, hold on. It was actually Anna and the attendees list. Oh, yes, we'd like to hear from Anna to let Anna go. And I'll try to remember what I was going to say. Anna, Stephanie, can we let on in? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just real quick before you start. I sure I told I told Stephanie earlier I have to actually depart in a few minutes. I can't believe you're going to miss what I'm about to say, Jesse. No, I'm going to stay for that, but I'm going to be in the middle unless it's super offensive and then I'm walking out. In fact, oh, well, maybe because of what you say that I leave. I'll take it first. Thank you all obviously for all the hard work and have a great two weeks. So really quickly, there's not a ton. I mean, as anybody who's been watching us knows, there's been a ton happening at council. However, one thing that is coming up that I wanted to put on your radar and maybe actually ask you to commit some time to in your next meeting is that we are about to launch into setting time manager goals for the next year. And if you've read the past year's time manager goals, he has he's had specific sections for climate action. And they often spell out specific actions that are in the carp that we then ask him to kind of move forward on. So one thing that's come up pretty recently is some interpretation of the carp that seems to be not disputed, but just questions about what's the actual priority from that document. So something that might be really helpful is if you could pick a couple of priority areas that y'all want us or want me and other counselors to advocate for in that goal setting process. That would be I'm going to speak personally because I don't ever speak on behalf of the council, but I know that would be hugely helpful to hear from y'all which parts you'd like to see us move on in the next year. That required town manager action, which most if not all of them require town manager action. So I'm happy to answer any questions about that. I do not have an exact timeline for you yet, so I can answer that right away. And we have a document that prioritizes somewhere. I remember you had a you had like a rubric or a sheet. I think that you've been working on. I don't have that. But we don't know how to date. Yeah, we never finished that process. Got it. So I don't know if anyone else wants to call on questions that I'm happy to. But with Stephanie and then Laura, yeah. So that document is a draft and I was saying that it really can't be. It was sort of the committee goals, but it needed to be merged with what the town had identified as well. And I think Vasu and I had talked about working on that together and we just haven't merged those two things yet. There's just been a lot going on, but I think we'll get we can. That sort of alerts me to making sure that that happens because I do have a draft document that's been vetted here at Town Hall. And again, these are things that we're identifying internally that are also, you know, they're from the carp. So it's not like we're we're not working from that document. Just things that we see coming up and potential funding streams because even if the committee identifies something, it doesn't necessarily mean we absolutely can do it. So it's good to merge those two things together to see what's really feasible. So, yeah, and I can do that. Sure. And to be clear, these are the council's goals for the town manager. They're not the only things the town manager will do. And except I know, you know, this, but just to make it clear to everybody else, these are just the council's goals. And so this is one where, you know, the council is seeking your your advice on on elements of or I as as your liaison I'm saying that I'd really love to have you all have some input on this. And so if you have anything, it's not a guarantee it'll make it in. But this would be a great time for you all to have some input on elements you'd like to see included in the in the goals that I can bring forward then to the table. Is there a timeline you should know about? Not yet. I don't know yet. But as soon as I get you on as soon as I get one, I will tell you. OK. And Laura, I think you have question. Yeah, thanks, Anna. Two questions for you. One, would you be possible for you to send Stephanie so she can give to us the last year's goals so we can see them and see what they were? Yes. Thank you. And then my second question was and maybe at this point, I just dream this, I don't know. But I swear at some point last year, the council made some kind of declaration or something that or maybe it was before your group started before my time. But I know what you're talking about. Yes. That Paul was going to need to give quarterly updates to the council on the progress of the carp. And that I don't think that's happened. So is this something like, first of all, how do we find if I did if I made that up or not? Secondly, I actually if I didn't make it up, can we put a goal or does it need to be some other type of? I don't know that it needs to be a goal. I think it can just be something we ask for. The goals might be a little bit bigger than that. I think that can just be something that we ask for. I've searched for that particular reference. And I'm not saying you did make it up. However, I cannot find reference to it. So I will keep searching. And in the meantime, I think it's something that we could be that could reasonably be asked for. And it's another reason to really make sure those specific elements that you would like to see happen are in the goals. And it doesn't mean done, right? Like, I know one of the goals for the past year was to make progress on the. My God, what's the thing called the municipality joint municipality agreement? You know, I'm talking about, please, someone help me finish the sentence. The joint powers agreement and the CCA. Thank you. Yes, the CCA. That's what it was was to make progress on that. I didn't say it had to be done, but we wanted to see substantial progress. So they can be broad. But I think one of the things that we've seen this year is that it said make progress on enacting recommendations from the climate action from the carp. And without prioritization of that, there's been some discrepancy on what are the priority areas? It's come up, for example, most recently with the zero waste project. Some folks saying that that was a priority in the carp. Some folks saying no, it wasn't. And and it takes it will take staff time. And so it's, you know, this is the goals is one method that the town manager uses to prioritize projects and staff time. And so it is important that we are clear. And that's my opinion in those goals. I guess, Andres. I want to say that. There are some things that the committee. ought to do that. And advising the town council. That's what Anna is asking for is is our opinions about priorities for the council to consider that should not be combined with the staff's priorities. It should be ours alone because we're the representatives of the. Residents in town and there are other times when. It needs to be combined. But I think that we should go through a process where we set. Our priorities and it may not be what ends up. Happening, but we should put them out there. I also want to be mindful that this was not on your agenda. And so I'm I'm also just I'm happy to keep answering questions. But I think my main goal to the list to get this on a future agenda for y'all. And I'm happy to answer any questions. But I think we're treading kind of close to a lot of deliberation on something that people didn't have warning that we were going to talk about. But other questions as Stephanie and Laura. I don't know which of you was first. Sorry. Laura can go first. I'll go after. Yeah, I guess I just wanted to respond to Andrew's point. And I agree we can have this as a separate meeting item. I disagree, Andrea. I think we prioritize what we need. It's in the carp. It's the it's the plan out to twenty twenty five. We can't do any more than that. Like we can pick the five things we're doing. That's what we're doing right now. But the staff need to implement it. Like we personally can't implement it. So like I feel like we keep running around every six months. The same cycle of like we need priorities. We come up with a list, you know, like I just don't know that we have. I don't think we can prioritize more than we already have. And we prioritize the things we're working on right now. And I guess I just feel like there needs to be another level of implementation that either we can ask for through these goals or otherwise figure out how to get done. Like I just think it's a waste of our time to continue to try to prioritize things that we do like because we can't do what the like we can't force the town to do. Or we can't we the town needs to prioritize what the town is doing. Well, so we're the ECAC and we have prioritized what ECAC is going to do. And what Anna is asking is our opinions as residents for the town manager's goals, which they will then, you know, town council then debate, but there are. Yeah, I completely agree with you with that input as residents, not as residents who only advise the town manager indirectly. This is another way for us to move things forward. And the town manager's goals are really critical, because that's what happens. Oh, I agree. But I don't think that, like, so Anna was saying, one of his goals was to implement the card, implement the priorities of the card. And what I'm hearing her say is that the council doesn't know how to decide whether he did that or not, because no, no, no. They don't know what's our priorities of the carp are. I can clarify that a little bit more. Maybe I'm saying we don't know which parts of the carp we're supposed to start with and which ones are item one on the list versus item 10 on the list, right? Like so implementing the carp, as you all know, better than I do, is is a multi year process here. And so what we need in this is again, in my opinion, which this was written by the prior council, I believe that goal was way too broad and not actually helpful in the sense of of tracking it, but also in the sense of where to start. So it can be implement the carp, but then a follow on needs to be by prioritizing X, Y, Z and those specific actions. That's that's what I mean when I say setting priorities is like, which ones do you want to see done in the next year? Because the whole carp can't be done in the next year. But what are the, you know, which are the elements that you'd like to see us put on his plate first, knowing that it may not get through. But I can try. Yeah. So that's that, but I would actually ask you to look back to the report we gave to the town council, which does lay out, I believe, our priorities that we wanted to have done this year. And that should be enough for you to look at to help rate him against what has happened this year. Thanks. Can you send that to me? Can you tell me what date it was on or Stephanie can find it? Yeah. Thanks, Stephanie. All right. So if I could jump in now, I just wanted to say that. Yes, I can forward. I'll make a note right now, send last year's report. So making a note. And also I wanted to say that. The 2025 goals are absolutely the priority. I mean, when when the when the plan was developed, the goal was to meet the 2025 reduction goal. And so that is the first set of priorities. And it's I think it's pretty clearly spelled out within the document. But then also on top of that, there was the report that can also substantiate what the committee was identifying as some goals that they that they saw. So those things, you know, I can certainly send both, you know, the report and the last year's ECAC report to you, Anna, just so that you have access. So there's that. And then I just wanted to sort of go back. I think Laura sort of expressed a lot of what I was going to respond to with Andrew's comment. But also I did want to say that, you know, I think you know, we are a committee and I am I am a part of this committee. I'm not specifically a voting member, but I am a part of this committee. And part of the reason is because we sort of talk about those priorities and we talk about those goals, but it's also as the staff person who especially now as director can oversee a lot of the implementation. I mean, that is my role to sort of keep us informed about what's, you know, where we are with things, what's possible, what we can prioritize, given what you all want to prioritize. So I just want to make sure that it's it's not necessarily ECAC in a vacuum. And I think their their requests were specifically for the committee to identify priorities. So that that's all I guess I just wanted to say again that we're working together and that's what makes us more effective is working together. So I actually have to drop. I'm sorry, I have to go to my other my other job now. I guess, Laura, if you have one more, I can stand for like another minute or so. But then I do have to run and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. OK. All right. Well, thank you very much, Anna. Thanks. OK. Are there staff update things? Should we move on to ECAC updates? Yes, I have nothing else. OK. You can't update. OK, go ahead, Steve. OK, if you remember last meeting, I you guys sort of gave me approval to take some thoughts to the town, the CRC developing the rental registration bylaw. I submitted those to CRC and word I got back from Andy Joe is that they will be considered as the next CRC meeting, which is November 3rd. So if folks on the committee are out there in the public want to listen in, that meeting is CRC 430 on November 3rd next week. And that'll probably be a reading and discussion of the latest amendments amongst the CRC. And then I believe subsequent steps are to begin to discuss that both in other public forums, as well as bring it to the full council for review. That was one announcement. The second is coming up on Friday this week is a seminar webinar on natural climate solutions that might be of interest to, again, both folks on this committee and to the public. And I thought if it's OK, Laurie, I might just quickly share my screen that shows the description of that. Yeah, that would be great. I actually wanted to ask Stephanie if it's ever possible for us to get a chat function in this so we can actually share links. No, never possible. No, well, no, we can't now. Yeah, in part, it's a security reason, so no. OK, well, here's the screen. I think you're seeing this is put on by the ESI, which is the are you seeing my screen? OK. Yes. OK. A Environmental and Energy Study Institute in Washington, D.C. and they give these briefings to members of Congress and their staff. This one is on natural climate solutions, and it's part of their series titled What Congress Needs to Know About COP 27? That's the next International Conference Conference of the Parties, the International Climate Negotiations. And this particular webinar on Friday will be about natural climate solutions, both the international stage as well as across the United States. And it looks really interesting to me. And just scrolling down, some of the speakers are rep from the Nature Conservancy, another one from the American Forests, Pew Charitable Trust, Environmental Defense Fund. So it looks like a diverse group of speakers. And then just to highlight the location for that, I think you can just go to www.e-e-s-i-dot-o-r-g slash live cast in one word, live cast. And that should take you there. It's 1 p.m. on Friday at that address. OK, thank you, Steve. Other updates? If not, I have an update. Oh, Dwayne. Yeah, it's always tough when you're taking notes. But yeah, so I can give an update on the ECAC, sorry, on the other one on the solar bylaw working group meeting that we had last week. I think it's on opposite weeks of the ECAC. We had a good meeting. We had actually had a very similar presentation from GZA on the solar assessment work and some questions back and forth of similar vein in terms of what the purpose and outcomes of were for the staff department head survey and then how what the public participation would look like. We did then also hear a one of our working group members Laura Pellegrini or something along those lines. I apologize to her last name, but she's a obviously a working group member, but also a very experienced solar developer. And so she was able to start a presentation that's going to be continued at the next meeting to inform members of the working group as well as staff. It's both Stephanie and Christine Bestrup on on the real ends and outs of solar development, solar development, particularly, larger ground mounted solar development and some of the things that I think are important for the committee, the working group to consider in their deliberations as we get into the writing of the bylaws themselves. We did actually, you know, start start really talking about the logistics and strategies for actually writing the bylaws and bringing them together. And fortunately, we have great help from the planning department in the town. They will actually be taking the lead as is their nature and expertise in drafting the bylaw in bylaw language. I think that's super helpful because none of us are really coming at it from that perspective and with basically. Then ability for the working group to review, respond and fill in all the gaps that will be necessary to fill in with regard to the level of what's included in the bylaw, what's considered. And then obviously the specifications within the bylaw that really gives it gives its flavor with regard to the stringency or leniency, I guess, on ability to end processes for developing, constructing, permitting solar. So that's that's in the sort of we have a process in place. That's going to be the work of the working group for the coming many, many months to get through that process. Christina started us off with an outline of what would be generally included in the in the in the bylaw. As she sees it, that's subject to change as we go along. And then the work of the working group will be really to hone in, deliberate and do some research on other bylaws and external research on how to draw some of these or how to come up with some of the specifications. So that's sort of an update from from IKAC. I mean, sorry, from from the sort of bylaw working group. I know Steve was was in attendance participating. We also made it clear, certainly on the on the working group, there's a lot of interest in the solar assessment as well. But, you know, we tried to make it clear as we have in this group that that technical assessment is a tool for us for both of our bodies to to work with. It's not setting priorities or preferences. The mapping itself is a is a tool for us to to inform our decision making and so forth. And and so I think there's we're we're getting a better understanding of what to expect and make you and how to make use of the of the of the solar assessment mapping exercise. Yes, Stephanie muted. Thanks, Wayne. So I just wanted to say that Laura's last name is Peggy Arulio. Just to sort of help you with that. I usually have it written out in front of me, but OK. And then also I just also wanted to remind this group that there will be a point at which I'm sure Dwayne will bring the draft probably via me to all of you to review and comment and weigh in on. So, you know, I think your expertise will be looked to the reason why there is this group, the solar bylaw working group, at least four members represent other committees. And so those committees are, you know, their expertise is is needed and wanted to weigh in at a certain point when they get to a draft. I mean, obviously not now, but at some point they will look to you. Are there questions or comments or staff updates? I did have one more update, which is to a point of interest, nothing to do with the working group, but just in my day job. And people may know the the company and I'm not here at all advocating for a specific project. At all advocating for a specific company, but this this company is a little bit different. And many of us may know about the company called Energy Sage, which provides a really useful service in the marketplace. They are not solar developers. They consider themselves sort of like the kayak of solar kayak for or travel loss or whatever they are. Or I guess kayak that just is a is a it's Energy Sage basically works with and get approved vets and approved solar developers to meet their criteria and then provides a service to homeowners, typically residential scale, people interested in going putting solar on their roof to get very comparable quotes from different companies without engaging with the companies until the the homeowner opts to select one or more to work with based on these quotes. And what was interesting, what I learned, which I think is it may be more interesting than that for this group, is that they are about to launch a very similar service for heat pumps, for residential heat pumps. I told I told my my son is just going through this process. Now, I was also thinking of you, Laurie, of going through this process and, you know, we are very, you know, we're in the 99th percentile of knowledgeable people and still have a hard time navigating around the heat pump market. And so this will see how it turns out that they're about to launch something similar to provide this type of service for the heat pump market as well. So it's something that UMass was actually interested in in in in what they were doing. Duane, I just shelled out 50 bucks to a vote today to compare three quotes. So. OK, OK. Yeah. Other updates, sir. So in my role as bringing the state issues home, there's a big move in the climate movement and also, you know, from the results of the climate bill that was passed in the last session for municipalities to take actions in order to electrify the buildings. Townline, not just municipal buildings, all those. And as you probably know, there's a statewide stretch code and we cannot write our own stretch code. But there's several different actions that we could take. And this is an example of something that we as a committee might say this will really move our carb goals forward that wouldn't, you know, we would be the ones to know about and decide which might be the best option or just let the town council decide. But I think at a future meeting, it would be good for us to delve into the differences between adopting the new specialized stretch code versus or in addition to filing a home rule petition to be one of the pilot towns to get to basically make our own code and or changing the policy that is currently that that is the current policy to asking Berkshire gas not to lift their moratorium. So I think of all of those as possible abilities for Amherst to let's lead and take, you know, a strong action that would make a big difference, just definitely. Andrea, is Berkshire considering lifting the moratorium? Not recently, no, but our current policy as of when they last were thinking of it was please do. Ah, I see. OK, you know, we should definitely consider that then. All right, thanks. I agree, this is probably something for an agenda item sometime soon to think about different possibilities and then and then recommend one of them to the council. So maybe that's something for our meeting next time. Other updates? If not, I have one. So we were hoping that we would have our first education series on heat pumps and envelope issues today. I've done a lot of work, but I have yet to here's what's happened. First of all, I spoke with Vasu decided to change the target date to start these this education series to be the next meeting, November 9th. The idea being that if we have the first of the month, we miss Thanksgiving and we miss Christmas so we could have one in November and one in December and then one in January. Whereas otherwise, we would certainly have to have to skip November and December. So we're trying for November 9th. Now, I have contacted a bunch of different people. I contacted Lorenzo Macaluso at CET thanks to Stephanie about the envelope's presentation. He may not be able to make it, but he's trying to find someone for us possibly for November 9th, but I'm still waiting on getting back from him. I can't contacted Dana Fisher at Mitsubishi about heat pump presentations I haven't gotten a reply. Now, in the interim, I went to a really excellent, excellent presentation, the best I've seen so far on heat pumps and incentives called heat pumps the what where and how much put on by the Green Energy Alliance and abode energy and I invited the speakers, but they have a substantial fee. And I think that Stephanie is also they also offer a heat pump advocates training class, which I would dearly love to take that I think Stephanie is already negotiating with them about getting this class and getting as part of some other deal with CET, I think, right? Um, sorry, no, we're we're talking with CET about the heat pump program. And there may be elements of that as part of the discussion with them. I'm just asking them to provide a quote to us. So OK, they're not related. I just wanted to be careful about the conversation we're having with one group. And also, we can't we can't just launch a program with with them without a contract. And so we can't just do that. Right, right. It just looks like the heat pump advocacy program that they do is exactly the one that you sent me a flyer for. So I think there's at least some overlap there. But in any case, what I'm going to suggest, and this is what I wanted input for is maybe the thing to do if I can't find a speaker for November 9th is to watch as a group, this heat pump presentation, at least the first 40 minutes of it, and then field questions from folks. I think between the bunch of us, ECAC members, we can probably answer most questions, especially if you have a look at the presentation in advance, you know, what's coming. Um, so I think or even if not, that might be one idea just to have a, you know, invite people in to watch this presentation and then have a discussion afterwards. I'd like to know what folks think about that. And I'm also still looking for suggestions for speakers. And finally, there was one other update I want to get back to. I want to get your input on some of this, but the only other update I had is that I also went to an excellent presentation. I think Steve was also there by Charlie Harrick on retrofits without displacement. That was really eyeopening for me and talked a little bit about something I hadn't even thought about at all, which is the need for one of the things that struck me. There were a lot of things, but one of the things that struck me was the need for contracts and doing any sort of a program where you're funding somebody to do an energy transition. You want to have a contract in place that makes sure, you know, I've been wondering, how do we make sure this is done in the just way? Well, the way you do it in just ways, you have a contract in place that says, you know, during the course of this project and for a couple of years afterwards, nobody gets evicted, rents are strictly controlled and and the housing, if affordable, stays affordable, right? So some sort of and they had they had. If I remember right, he said they were going to distribute sample contracts. So that was a really interesting presentation. And I think particularly useful was it was designed for for folks working for the municipality, so Stephanie, I don't know if you've seen that or not. Maybe I wasn't able to. But if you get that information, definitely forward it to me. I will. That would be great to have. Thank you. So I was hoping to get some input from folks on more speakers, more places to go. I was thinking of just reaching out to the head of local energy advocates, for example, and and and maybe some folks at BEA to get suggestions for speakers. But a lot of these speakers are in great demand, as it turns out, and have fees associated with their there aren't enough people doing this sort of work. So what do you think about the idea of having a just watching a presentation together and then having a panel discussion? I wonder if you might curate it for us. So maybe skip some so that it's not the full 40 minute presentation. Oh, it's a really cohesive. This is why I like this presentation. Did you see it, Andra? No, it is extremely cohesive and exactly what you want to know if you're trying to put a heat pump in. I learned a lot and I've been at this for months now. It's it's very dense and right to the point. And there was very little in it that I would want to cut out. It was two speakers in the 40 minutes. The first one focused mostly on, you know, what a heat everything from what a heat pump is, types of heat pumps, what sort of systems you can put in, what sort might be relevant for your house to incentives and rebates, right? It was the second part. And it wasn't it was all very focused. No envelope issues, right? That would have to be a separate discussion, which I think is fine. It's something I was thinking another in the series on just on saving money. You know, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be called envelope issues. It can be called how to save money this winter. Right. Things you can do. But again, finding someone to do that is the right part. I like the idea. And I think for an hour presentation, 40 minutes of watching in 20 of questions is about a good balance anyway. It worked out well. There were a lot of questions answered. They feel that I'm sure the recording is probably in full 60 minutes, but we can cut out the last 20 because that was all questions. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a great idea, Laurie. I think that was a wonderful presentation and probably worth watching or showing as part of our meeting. Yeah, these guys have been doing it for a while. There is another set coming up in November, I think, according to Mike Simons, who wrote back to me. So if I can get a date on that, that would be another possibility just to have everybody in Amherst advertise that date. Go to this or we can do both show it and either way. All right. If there is nothing else there, we're on to now Vasu had suggested doing an Education Series Jamboard, but because we have no way to share a Jamboard link or a or a I talked to him about this just before the meeting or even a Google Doc link. This isn't really something I think we should do during the meeting. So I think perhaps after the meeting, if we can just circulate a link for people to add stuff to, can we do that, Stephanie? Or does that violate an open reading law just to make entries enough? Yeah, I know that Google Docs are really. It's very clear that committees should not be working on Google Docs together, is at least what I've been told. I think. But I think if it's something that you're all just contributing, as long as there's no deliberation or feedback on what someone's done, if you're just creating something and everyone's adding to it without deliberation, I think that's probably OK, but you should probably get it to me. Like the feedback should probably go through me somehow. OK, and the other thing people can do is just send your suggestions. And this goes especially for folks in the in the audience and the attending. You know, if you have suggestions for seminars you'd like to see regarding the energy transition, I guess the thing to do is to send them to Stephanie and Stephanie, if you would forward them to to me. Maybe I can just start putting together a document that we can like and share on my screen next time, or if you have a comment afterwards, just share it with us. So the next thing is just items for the next meeting agenda. So far, I have discussion in addition to the usual things that we put on every time, updates, et cetera, setting priorities for the town council and town manager, I think is something we probably need to discuss some more. Whether we actually come up with a suggestion or just reroute people to another document that probably needs to be there. Or maybe that will get settled in the next between now and the next meeting. And then I also had a discussion of the state issues of what what we can do to advance greenhouse gas transition, energy transition across the state, either through doing a home rule petition or adopting a stretch code or and also the Berkshire gas suggestion. You know, are there other larger issues that we want to recommend to town council to take up? I think that would be a good discussion. Anything else we need for the next agenda? What might be the one after if we actually have a presentation next time? Yes, I believe Duane and I are coming back with our solar or solar scenarios for discussion. Is that right, Dwayne? Yep, I think I'm sort of maybe a third of the way through what I want to get some input on and get Steve, just sort of your comments on not deliberate on, but just comment on before the meeting. But but yeah, that's my goal is to have that then available for ECAC discussion next next meeting, if that if that can work out. That's going to be a big discussion. Things to think about. I think if we do end up doing a presentation, we probably want to start at five thirty, which means keeping the meeting compressed to an hour, so maybe we'll change the try to talk to Vasu about focusing the first part of the meeting on one or two topics instead of having the whole usual list of updates and all right. And if there's nothing else, I think we're back to public comment. So if anyone from the public would like to make a comment or ask a question, please electronically raise your hand. OK, I'm not seeing anyone raise their hand. So if there are no further comments, I think we're ready to adjourn. Laurie, I do I know that people want to know how many attendees were in the meeting. So I will note that at one point there were eleven. There are nine now and have been for a while, but there were eleven at one point. Right. OK, so to adjourn. Anyone move to adjourn. Second, second, all in favor. I think you're good to adjourn. All right, thank you. Thank you, Laurie, everybody. Thanks, my folks.