 start recording. Okay, we're recording now. Okay, so happy new year everyone. Welcome back. Before we get into the nitty-gritty of today's agenda, I wanted to ask Steve to read something he just read offline here. Why don't you go ahead and read that letter from the student, Steve? Sure, this is the letter that students at Hampshire College wrote, a cover letter to the Climate Action Plan for Hampshire College that we developed as a class last semester, and I think they wrote a very nice cover letter, and I thought I would just share the very end of it, the last paragraph, and it says, the work does not end with this document, the Climate Action Plan. We leave our community with this message. We must have hope. We must address the climate crisis by first sharing and processing our feelings of fear, sadness, and anger, but to hope is not enough. We must act, and in acting together, we cultivate the strength to keep working towards a sustainable future for all. Thank you, Steve. Amen. Love it. All right, so Paul Gromer is here, so I think what I'd like to do if it's okay with you, Stephanie, is move everything on the agenda down as much as we can, and just let's find a note taker. We have to do that though, so whose turn is it to take notes today? I think, Don, did you do it last? I think Don did. Right, so. Yes, I did last month. So looking at the minutes, just going down the list, Stella, I'm just going down the list. Can you do that? Okay, great. All right, and with that then, what we will put off if it looks like there are no attendees anyway, so we'll put off public comment, we'll put off the going over the minutes, and just skip right to number four on the agenda, the update on the CCA legislation by Paul Gromer. Thank you, Paul, very much for joining us here today. My pleasure, it's a pleasure to it's a pleasure to be here, so I can just launch ahead or charge ahead if that makes sense. So I'll start talking to the new tell me what to stop or when I go off course. So there really like two related things that might be of interest. One is the legislation, which is pending, which would change the rules for CCAs. And then in parallel with that, the Department of Public Utilities is a process underway where they're developing what they call guidelines for the regulation of CCAs. And those two things are happening at the same time. We're originally quite a bit in conflict, but now are seem to be coming together more. To start with the legislation, I can give you a quick update on that, although there may not have been much action there since you last knew. There is a bill of act a few different bills quite similar. The main one was filed by Representative Vittolo. It's House 3852. This bill would reduce in a significant way Department of Public Utilities oversight of aggregation programs and provide more flexibility to cities and towns. It was developed in response to a situation where the Department of Public Utilities approval of aggregation slowed to a snail-like pace and the approval process went from four months to over three years. And in parallel with that, the Department of Public Utilities was increasing its micromanagement of the program. So I was telling you, it used to be they provided general guidance and municipalities could operate within that and it became increasingly prescriptive. So both the slowness and the micromanagement created a lot of unhappiness on the part of cities and towns. The legislation was developed. A letter was sent in with well over 100 cities and towns signing it, encouraging the legislature to enact this legislation. There's been a public hearing on it and now it's in committee. It's in the Energy and Telecommunications Committee and the way that committee typically operates is they come up with one great big bill at the end of towards the end of the legislative session. So that would be really in the early like in May, June that timeframe. And there's a good chance or some chance anyway this bill will be included in that. But there may not be a lot of public information about what's happening until the committee comes, moves forward with their with their combined bill, which would include if it includes this, this, and then some of the other things they've been working on. So that's the legislation. And then in parallel with that, there was the DPU guidelines to try to the goal of sort of streamlining the aggregation review process. They came out with an initial draft in August, which was widely panned by all from all sides and quite a number of cities and towns, including Amherst, submitted comments to the DPU saying going in the wrong direction here, too much micromanagement, please give the cities and towns more flexibility. The DPU has been responsive to that and they held, they've done two things. They came out with a, or agreed to hold a technical session, which is their name for a meeting where you talk about things. And then they came out with a revised draft for discussion of the guidelines to discuss at the technical session. And the revised draft was much better from the cities and towns perspective offered a much lighter touch in the regulation and paired back what had been quite a lot of the micromanagement. The status of that is now the department said they're going to create a working group to talk through these details. But in the meantime, some of the cities, the really the consultant group that works with cities and towns, my firm and their couple of others are working together to try to at the department's acceptance for us to come up with a proposed revised draft to take what the DPU presented and maybe take it a step further. And so that process is underway. I'll say just one other thing, like what's behind this big change in tone by the DPU and I think it's one they've really heard from the cities and towns that they're unhappy with the way things are and they want to be responsive to that. And secondly, we do have, you know, three or two new commissioners appointed by Governor Healy. Initially, they didn't change the way aggregation worked, which created a lot of frustration because many assumed new commissioners new game. But they didn't. It turns out though that wasn't because they were happy with the way things were, it was maybe just they had other things they needed to take care of first. But now they're focused on the CCA and they seem to be moving it in a much better direction. So can I ask a quick question? At one point, there were a bunch of emails that crossed my desk and I don't know if it was about the legislation or about the rules from DPU that this is a question of opt in versus opt out, that there was either a rule or the legislation that was going to make it opt in instead of opt out. And I just wanted to check, is that still the case? Is it still there? Is it something we should be responding to? Or is that now out? Is that idea? Yes. So that's a great question. So I think the the the genesis of those emails was a slight misunderstanding of what the DPU had proposed. So they weren't proposing to change the rules from opt in to opt out. It was that there's an obscure clause about what happens if the municipality changes its products and something you've opted into and now it's different. You then have to reopt in, but it was limited to with that very, very small circumstance. There's no proposed change to the overall opt out versus opt in approach. Okay, great. So do you want to keep going, Paul? Well, that's that's what pretty much what I had to say. But I'm happy to answer any any questions. And then I guess the only thing I could add maybe to what I said is like what would be next from here. So it's my hope that if a new draft can be prepared and in a timely way, and there's a really short window to do it, there may be some outreach again to the cities and towns to try to get their support for the new draft, because the DPU will be wanting to hear is there support for this idea of cities and towns still thinking the same way. So you might hear from me more asking if the community would like to sign on to this new proposal. It may also be true though that the schedule just doesn't permit that because we have a very limited time wanting to get it done and then maybe not enough time to you know, see ask the cities and towns to support it. Right. Okay. Because that's what I wanted to ask is there a role that we can play here is there a letter that needs to be written or or a statement that needs to be made from ECAC that might be helpful. Yes. Certainly if that if it turns out there is I will absolutely let you know. Okay. That's that would be great. What about the so where is our application now and what is the sounds like nothing happens until the new rules are in place. It sounds like the new rules are. Did I hear this summer? Well, yes. So no no set timeline for the new rules. It does seem that the DPU is moving fast. One thing I neglected to mention that they had about 20 plans pending some of which for three years or more and they must have approved 15 of them in the last two weeks of the year. So the new commissioners are really accelerating things. They are approving them even without the rules in place. Exactly. They are slightly unfortunately though like kind of under the old rule. So those approvals include a bunch of restrictions that may not be in place under the new rules. And though they've said once the new rules have are in place they apply to everybody. So if you had an approval under the old rules you can still take advantage of the new. In terms of of your proposal it it has been filed. It's pending the next step that is a DPU has a required public hearing which just scheduled forgive me I have to look up the date I can for January. That's It's January 22nd. Sorry. I'm just going to jump in. Yes. Thank you, Stephanie. That is a bit of a formality. So it will be important that a couple of folks go and comment on it but it there's no need to try to like bring out like have a whole bunch of people come because it it wouldn't make a difference one way or the other. They they go through the formality but not the the public hearing doesn't have a lot of consequence. So someone from ECAC probably ought to be there and I'm going to be in Costa Rica. So can you Laurie if I could jump in we actually have the Valley Green Energy Working Group that's been working on this and those folks are going to attend. So there's we really only need one person from each community and I'm actually going to represent Amherst. Okay, great. Thank you Stephanie. Sure. Are there other questions? I'll just throw out one and hi Paul good to see you. I guess you've been at this for so long in several roles that cover all the perspectives. I'm wondering whether obviously this is all really good news as far as I'm concerned with regard to cities and towns engaging in CCAs both in terms of less restrictions and expedited process. But is there anything that you read or see in the proposed rules that give you pause in terms of public policy or things that cities and towns should be concerned about in their new free or rain in developing these programs? There isn't really anything that concerns me though the way I've come to think about it is that you know the department or not the state had a way of managing CCAs that and legislation that govern them and a review process that worked really quite well for about 15 years. It was smooth, the review process was quick, the municipalities had flexibility to do what they wanted. And then over the last few years the DPU took it in a different direction, slower reviews, more micro management. I had been afraid and I think most people were that like this was the path we were now on but now it's looking more like that was a detour and we're moving back to the old path which is was a successful one or a good path. So I'm feeling pretty good about it and I think I really think on these programs the more from my perspective the more municipal flexibility the better you know different cities and towns will have different ideas and it's great to let them try the different ideas and also different things that would fit better in different places so I think the more flexibility for the cities and towns the better from just from a policy perspective. Good to hear. Other questions? If not I have one other Paul. So in regards to the legislation that you mentioned is there anything for us to do just as individuals there in the way of contacting our representatives and encouraging them to support such and such a language or is that going to become irrelevant if these new rules are passed? Yes so I'm not certain how the legislature is going to what they're going to do in light of this. I think a lot of the impetus for the legislation has been seems has been taken away and so it could be that the way the legislature will react is we don't need to do this anymore. Although they may also think well we're on a doing something good so we're going to continue doing I'm not really sure at this stage. I am just by coincidence I'm going to I'm meeting tomorrow with one of the legislative committee chairs I might get a better sense from that. One thing that was interesting on that is that the the chair of the legislative committee that has the bill came to the technical session which is very unusual that he would come someone with that position would come to a regulatory technical session and what I personally found very interesting is he didn't say anything he just sat there and observed and of course the new commissioners knew just who he was so he didn't need to make big speeches he just sat listened you know in a very polite respectful way but he was there keeping his eye on things so I thought that was great I thought it showed good you know good legislative involvement in this issue. Oversight but they're supposed to be done. Yeah so that's the sounds like the best thing to do would be either nothing or just writing a note saying that you're glad to hear that these rules are being passed through DPU and appreciate your your representative or or senators efforts at you know making sure these regulations or or the law you know either one making sure that this change happens whichever way it happens. Yeah I think that's right and we should to no more you know I think that for the DPU I think we're on a great direction but they're not final yet so they could still you know veer off the road again not impossible but I think we're path for now and I'll I'll definitely you know keep keep Stephanie for sure up to date as things develop and so the committee can decide how you how you want to respond. Yeah and if there's ever anything that you need to see there as a committee or as individuals just to respond to just you know let us know. Very good thank you I really appreciate that. Yeah thank you for your time. Any other last questions comments? All right so thanks again Paul. Great thank you thanks very much for having me it's good to see everyone take care. Thanks Paul. Bye. Okay so back to the agenda. Does everyone have a look at the minutes? Shall we bring them up? I can bring them up. Can you guys all see that okay? Make it a little bigger. Okay so this was from last time I assume the changes were made for the last minutes. Any comments? Suggestions? Changes? And then there was Martha's comments. I'll move that we accept the minutes as they are. It's for a second. Second anyone? Oh I'll second I thought you did second Laurie. No no I was looking for a second. Okay then. Okay Laurie can you thank you. All right so make sure you're unmuted and your camera is on please and in no particular order. Roof? Yes. Goldner? Yes. Selman? Stain. Breger? Yes. Allison? Yes. Dee? Yes. Okay and it's approved. Okay public comments do we have anyone in the audience? We do not. But hopefully we will next time because we will have a presentation but let's go ahead and continue on down our our list here. So the next thing on the agenda are our updates. So the only update I have on heat pumps is that I'm you know as I said last time I finished the Rewiring America Heat Pump Coach program and I will be helping to facilitate it this time. I will be a heat pump or an electrification guide. It's a little scary sounding I imagine myself you know being in a circuit somewhere but um any rate I will be participating in that. Looks like Stephanie it's going to be Thursdays I don't know if they've announced it yet because there's still they still have an announce who's going to be in the course but I think that announcement will come out you know who the students are will come out next week. Okay yeah because I haven't heard anything at all. Yeah okay I realize that I'm surprised they're putting it off so long they have they have big plans to train something like a thousand coaches in the first half of this year. So they need to get serious about you know letting people know earlier. Just for my curiosity is that in Massachusetts or is this nationwide? Nationwide there are it's it's nationwide it's quite impressive how nationwide it is. Yeah so I don't have anything more than that I guess we'll hear staff updates later to see if there's anything more on the heat pump program but until we have that heat pump program in place I suspect I won't have a lot of updates. So transportation Stella? I think really just the the draft of the letter to the editor which we could look over now if people want. It's actually next on the agenda since we've already heard Paul's presentation so why don't we just jump right to that. I can share the draft or you can share it. Yeah feel free to share it because I it's a little hard to do minutes in. Okay give me a second here. Yeah I can do it as well. Just a letter to the editor on behalf of all of us to the Hampshire because that. Why don't you go ahead and share it Stephanie? Sorry before we do this because I need some comments in mind that I want to discuss but I don't necessarily need to show them to everybody. I was struggling to come up with like enough for an op-ed although I get the word count there but if people think it should be an op-ed we can try to expand it. Is that big enough or can I make it do I need to make it bigger? That's fine. Okay. So I thought this was was nice except there's one sentence in the first paragraph that I'm having a little trouble with. So I did a quick look right before the meeting section where it says section 16b extends us to school grounds. That's true but the rule that's mentioned there says section 16b of that law extends the law to school grounds but it gives some other body I think the motor vehicles department or something like that the ability to make regulations about what exactly the limits are the time limits and the temperature limits on idling and so just just clarifying it by saying you know well it could probably leave it as that but I was confused about the idling for longer than one minute in any 15 minute period is illegal on school grounds when the temperature is under 35 degrees so I kept expecting that to say over 35 degrees you mean when it's over 35 degrees they can't idle because one minute sounded like a very short time to me but the point is that no idling is allowed above 35 degrees so I just wanted to clarify that by saying something like let's see how can we spray it idling for longer than one minute in any 15 minute period is illegal on school grounds idling for a maximum of one minute in any 15 minute period is legal only when the temperature is under 35 degrees something like that you know what I mean yeah totally yeah so you want to go ahead and let's try that I don't know if that phrasing is the best or not but I think what I said idling for a maximum of one minute in any 15 minute period is only legal I can make it my copy it's only legal I don't think we need to say on school grounds again because we just said that to school grounds idling for longer than one minute in any 15 minute period is only legal if the temperature is under 35 degrees no I'm for a maximum of one minute sorry for a maximum for a maximum of one minute okay so does that sound right I'll read that I'll read that sentence one more time uh section 16b extends this to school grounds colon idling for a maximum of one minute in any 15 minute period is only legal if the temperature is under 35 degrees um what about section 16b clarifies that with respect to school grounds or something because it doesn't really it doesn't really like on second look it doesn't really like extend it because it's a totally different policy kind of uh no 16b I think does extend it to schools it just hang on a minute I gotta look I just had it up a minute ago I mean it extends like the anti idling provisions but it doesn't it is like pretty different yeah it it it extends the section 16 to school property and it says that the adoption of the specific regulations quoted there are actually 540 cm r 27 from the dm from the you know motor vehicles department or whatever it's called cmr um the because that's the the registry of motor vehicles and consultational department of education are the folks who adopt regulations to implement that section so there's a separate law where it says if the exterior temperature is less than 35 degrees fahrenheit then idling is allowed to heat the interior of any motor vehicle other than a school bus school buses can do it for the longer for a period or periods aggregating not more than one minute in any 15 minute period that's the specific rule that's actually not mentioned in section 16b it's mentioned elsewhere but it's easy to find once you know where the if you just google it once you know who's making the rule does that make sense yeah I think however we want to phrase it is fine as long as like because it is I think people don't know the rules right as long as it's clear what what is actually going on yeah and it's not actually section 16b and that colon sort of indicates that it is so maybe we should change that um 16 neither of those section a or b neither of those actually gives a time limit those are a matter of rules published elsewhere they just make it possible to regulate that where where are you looking because when I look at the the legislature document it does say five minutes oh in the first part in 16a yeah okay then I'm sorry I missed that you're probably right then uh hang on a minute 16a um I just have to go back to 16a I had it open a moment ago yeah 16a yeah it's the first yeah it does okay yeah it's the first line in 16a right right the first line in 16a does that and then 16b doesn't actually have a new time limit but it says that uh the registry of motor vehicles and schools can and some education department can make rules around it for that are different um so that's where so maybe we should just add a little bit or maybe she mess with that sentence a little bit more I could find it um section 16b and why don't we just give it a number I believe it's general law uh no it's it's see it 540 whatever that means 540 cmr registry code of massachusetts regulations yeah and that okay and massachusetts regulations 540 cmr okay hang on a minute where'd that sentence go the end massive she says regulation 540 cmr extends this to stool grounds I live for maximum of one day and that's and that's fine for one minute any 15 minute period it's legal it was only legal if the temperature is under 35 degrees it still reads a little funny because we just said it was five minutes was legal and now we're saying for a maximum of one minute how about iLintro you could say something like the next sentence could read something like um well I thought I had it in my brain but no you don't um can I can we word smith this um see we go on school grounds uh can I share my screen um I want to go ahead and we can maybe it might be easier to word smith this because I'm actually typing in as we're talking so people can see what I've typed uh Stephanie you could say something you could start that sentence that begins section 16b extends yeah hang on a minute let me um let me show you what's there share a screen word smith this quickly okay let me make this bigger again view page width okay so we are here section 16b and the Massachusetts regulation 540 cmr there should be a space there let's make it keep the outer space extends this to school grounds I would say I wouldn't say extends this to school grounds I would say poses is more significant restrictions yes right school grounds that's what was missing I would do imposes instead of poses imposes yes okay imposes imposes you can say more significant or you know yeah I would also say establishes because I feel like imposes is like pretty negative imposing I would just be in uh establishes stricter restrictions stricter restrictions is fine yeah stricter restrictions yes oh well what's another synonym um establishes restrictor limits stricter limits I like that yeah then then your colon makes sense yes idling for a maximum but I would say I would even be clear and say idling on school grounds is impermissible um except when temperature is under 35 degrees I suppose you should put Fahrenheit but maybe not um yep except when and then only for a maximum of one minute in any 15 minute period only for yeah only for a maximum yeah any anything like that establishes stricter limits on school grounds idling on school grounds is impermissible except when the temperature is under 30 factories Fahrenheit and then only for one minute in any 15 minute should you say a private a private vehicle because like it is different if you're a school bus yes yes idling on school grounds like just idling a private vehicle on school grounds idling a private vehicle on school grounds is impermissible except for the temperature right it should it should be I think as um Don said uh for only for a maximum of one minute yeah and then take out the then in other words no and then is fine only for the maximum for a maximum I left out the a maximum yeah uh that's it maximum of one minute in any 15 minute period dress warmly I like the last sentence um so I think I'm good with that I mean just to the point that um I think we started with that people don't know this law or this rule generally I think also there's a pretty small portion of the population that reads the gazette unfortunately um I'm wondering if we want want to add something that says uh we encourage school administrators to post signs on their grounds yeah part of the regulations also give specifications for the signs they're supposed to post or allowed to post so we could ask or maybe that's a separate activity we could take uh just yeah those yeah that was another item on my like to do list with respect to idling that I haven't gotten to was reaching out to the schools and um the drivers ed programs specifically to see and we could click this article and send it to them along with a little personal note that says please consider putting on idling anti idling signs and perhaps even link them to the relevant law so that they know where to go to get the verbiage for the signs I think the ask that had been suggested in the last meeting we talked about this in was to see if it could go out in like like a similar kind of PSA in like a parent's newsletter oh yeah you know can I can I make one other suggestion just on the fourth line down generally speaking you don't say under the it's just under massive under general laws chapter 90 section a and then I would begin that next sentence just so there's no confusion so before sec yeah massachusetts general law laws chapter 90 section 16a and then I would put um and you can even abbreviate it if you want on the next sentence mgl um capital m capital g capital l chapter 90 section 16b yeah mgl or whatever if you want to spell it out again massachusetts general laws chapter 90 i see section 16b yeah that's that's the way you to abbreviate it in mgl chapter 90 section 16 oh wait oh i see i see what you're saying not here yeah so then mgl then put it put a small c or ch period yeah 90 yeah comma and then a small s small f section yeah 16b so so that um laws are general law it's massachusetts general laws laws okay the laws plural okay mgl chapter 90 section 16 b and massachusetts regulations 540 cmr establishes something about furthermore how about that okay just as a better segue mgl chapter 90 section 16 b do we need on school grounds again here does that work i would i would leave it in i see i see it both ways so if you guys would refer to leave it in that's fine with me i don't care right and i spelled out degrees fahrenheit which i think is fine rather than trying to find the right symbols okay so then the plan for this um to put in the minute so we don't forget is to send this to the gazette assuming we all we have to have a vote on it i think right but assuming it passes we send it to the gazette so the the proposal would be a send it to the gazette and to follow up by also trying to find parent teacher newsletter school newsletters to publish it in and outreach to school administrators about getting signs in place so three things right so does that sound right to you because oh sorry go ahead steve no i i think that's right i just wanted to add that at least that um crocker farm school they've they since covid they sort of changed the drop-off and pickup pattern for parents and as i understand it it sort of they they signal cars to come in to an area close to the school they drop off the kids and then the car can continue so whole line of cars are sort of constantly moving in a line and i think it would be hard not to have your car idling in that situation the better situation would be to go back to the way it was before covid and um have have a drop-off that's not quite as controlled by the school staff as it used to be um so i'm not sure my wife has complained about this they created they created traffic jam instead of giving you a yeah to sit in and wait right you know i think now you have a staffer involved in quite a quite an intensive level for bringing the kids out and bringing them to a car and likewise in the morning picking them up at the car and then leading them into the school so it's slower and it results in this slow moving traffic jam as opposed to parents kind of circling in dropping off letting the kid run over to the school like they used to be able to do so and maybe seeing if the schools are willing to redesign their pickup and drop-off the parents pick up and drop-off procedure at least at crocker farm that looks good i think yeah that sounds that sounds great uh but i think that's probably a bigger ask of the schools obviously i mean it sounds like it's very necessary but i don't think i could like take that on in the next uh two months before ecac parental leave is convincing the schools to redo their whole pickup and drop-off procedure um so i think i think i think maybe i'll make a note of that and then but i think i think just like trying to get some information out there might be the to-do list item for now if that sounds good to people yeah i think i think raising the issue so they're aware of it maybe suggesting that a different drop-off pickup pattern could work and let that percolate with them for a while and and i'll tell my wife to write a letter to complaining and suggesting change and maybe enough people do that they'll move on it does anyone here who here has kids in which schools i mean mine's long graduated um i have one at crocker farm and one at the high school ah so maybe we could ask you to reach out to those to stella do you have kids in any of the schools uh she's still in preschool preschool yeah which school will she be going to um probably wildwood wildwood yeah so maybe the obvious thing to do is for steve to reach out to um high school and a crocker farm and then if you want stella to reach out to the others or just to the wildwood or and then i can take care of if it's okay with you you or i could take care of sending it to the gazette um and then i'll leave the rest of the well i should ask um well first of all we should make sure that this letter is as we want it we should go ahead and i think stephanie i think we need to vote right to approve a letter and go ahead and um yeah you could you could vote just to make it official i don't think it's absolutely necessary but you you could so you just want to but do you need to close it out so that i can see everybody oh yeah i think we need a motion to um to uh accept the letter as it now is and send it out to the gazette and other and school newsletters in town i think that's the first that's probably what we ought to be having a motion for so do we have a motion in a second i'll motion to what you said second anyone i don't i don't feel like it's cheering i feel like i shouldn't be i can second all right then and all right then in no particular order roof yes goldener yes selman yes bregger yes allison yes and d yes great and thank you stella for drafting that yeah so now who's gonna do what so that this actually gets done so which parts do you are you comfortable with you want to do it because then you can say you're the chair it just means that so i've i've written a letter you put maybe have to like a letter to the editor to the gazette before they'll just like call you to be sure we're like really cack okay so i'll sign the one i'll send the one to uh i'll sign the good that and send the copy to the gazette um they have like an online submission box that you like can copy and paste it into also because you now have the voted on version uh you have the voted on version yes i have the voted on version so what i'll do is i will go ahead and sign it so they have a paste in so they don't even need an actual physical no um okay so then what i'll do is i'll just go ahead and submit it uh for ecac and stella you should feel for you to do the same submit it for ecac to unless you you know want me to make a formal memo with my name on it or something like that um to do the same submit it to uh whatever school folks you want to do and the same thing steve um i guess that can be less formal yeah that was i was going to do that less formally um i'm also wondering whether it makes sense to let assuming and if the gazette publishes the letter to the editor then we can use that to cut out um or electronically cut and paste uh it might have a bit more weight if it was actually published if you will yeah all right so start off by doing the online submission thing one other potential place to to add it would be the athletic departments my experience is that the parents waiting to pick up their kids after practices and games myself included sit in their cars outside of the middle school and the high school and the it it's a lot of idling i mean i don't know if it's how much it is but it's that might be a good group of parents to i want to wave a finger at us but friendily remind us come in and watch the end of the practice instead of burning all right so i'll send copies of that the final letter to step to stephanie who will distribute it um let me make sure i've saved it so i don't lose it don't want to jesse that also sounds like um a good place for like if there's any coaches who are on board with this kind of stuff like it seems like it would be a friendly it would feel most friendly coming from a coach being like hey like why don't you come inside instead of like idling you know yeah yeah that's that is i wonder if we're the right messenger if we should try to go through like a coach there who might have more a coach who's just the athletic department and have them disseminated out to their i mean there's dozens of coaches um i think there's maybe a broader email there for transportation as well to talk about the fact that 20 cars drive to chicopee it's for the away game you know carpooling for example maybe maybe stella you and i could do it athletics specific friendly reach out friendly psa there's a lot there i've been trying to figure this one out for a while okay um all right with that all in place and i hope i hope still you got that who's doing what in the in the minutes um like this having a hard time keeping track of all of it and paying attention to everything i think so the main thing is i think i think you're gonna submit it to the the gazette yeah and then i agree that i think we wait for it to be in the gazette which it will be you know they don't like reject stuff like this and then we send we do the next thing because i do think it's nice if you can like to refer to like a printed document okay cool if the gazette asks us to um reduce the length of it a little bit can we agree to have larry and stella work on that on their own sure okay super i don't think we need a vote of confidence it's not that long right hopefully we'll be okay with it um all right so um next should we go on the next thing we have a lot to cover today any further discussion on this okay so the next thing is another draft this is shorter i think because i just wanted you guys to have a this is just sort of my response to the town council on the climate bank which i finally got a very nice letter back from uh i don't think this had happened the last time we were here i got a letter back from jared freedman on joe cumberford's chief of staff um and he he tracked this down for me uh and figured out that yes there is a when we last left there was a i thought that the whole thing was premature that there really wasn't the climate bank at all yet because there was no funding for it because i found the bill to fund it well according to jared freedman um it was funded with 50 million dollar seed money through mass housing and department let's see and um department of environmental protection so the money was taken from department of environmental protection and mass housing is supposed to oversee the program climate bank program but as it turns out they haven't regulated they haven't issued rules yet on how they're going to do that so that's why it's stuck it's stuck in mass housing because there are no rules so in my last contact with jared i asked him well who at he he sent me a letter he paraphrased something that someone at mass housing had told him but he didn't give me a name so i said okay well can you tell me who we should contact to keep tabs on this and he said he would get back to me so i haven't that's where we left it before christmas and so i thought i don't want to wait anymore to respond to the town council because i think we we sort of know what to say at this point uh so i'm just gonna so i mock this thing up pretty quickly and if there are any comments i'm happy to have them did i share the right thing yes yeah so i would just take a minute to look at this if you have any comments or objections and by the way this wasn't actually a town manager goal it was just i think i incorrectly called it that i didn't i think i did it right at the town council meeting it was just an ask of the town that they have this put this climate banking place yeah i don't think it was a goal right if there are any comments i'll take them now and if not i'll just send it like this on to the town council um with stephanie's guidance as to who should be in the in the uh two line should i just send it to athena and let her no you can um lin greece murr has the i was elected as president again so send it to lin okay just make sure you copy me and athena and paul bachmann as well you and athena and and paul bachmann okay correct my actual notes i don't lose it i think i've written this down three other times i'll send to lin greece murr with cc to paul bachmann stephanie any comments or should we move on i'm just looking real quickly i mean 50 million dollars not very much money obviously that's a seed seed seed money i'm just looking at the legislation that you cited um i don't know how much whether there is any any dollar value that they were planning to the staff really establish the bank with yeah i don't know i honestly didn't get that far into reading it and it is only seed money at this point until there are rules that's not even available so um well it does say the very last uh section of the bill which happens to be paragraph z says by request of the governor the state treasurer may also issue and sell up to 750 million in bonds within a given physical year to capitalize the bank so that's real money that starts to be real money for sure yeah all right i'm not sure if we need that in in there uh because it's good to know it's good to know thank you i figured i would check back in the near rules and then and then get the details and see whether or not it's realistic all right so any other comments steve jesse don stella no stephanie so if not i will stop sharing and we will move on to the next item in the agenda let's see where are we solar bylaw discussion continued and also number eight is a uh oh the educational series so let's let's do solar bylaw discussion continued i think that's you doing right is there more talk about yet uh not so much on my end i will say that um i'm i'm um i think it was fresh off the press maybe when we talked about it before the the rulings of the um a g's office on pelham and shoots burry yes um and um you know i think just amongst the solar bylaw working group we're sort of feel like we're in we we um are probably in in better shape obviously this is still needs to have legal review by the town legal counsel but that being said i think some of the red flags if you will that the a g brought up beyond the sort of procedural ones um for the for the two uh proximate towns um we didn't really we purposefully avoided those in our bylaw so i think we're going to be in better shape in that regard that being said i also recognize that we're a city not a town uh so uh we were not reviewed by the a g's office but it's almost the same thing because um these are the issues that would be raised by potential lawsuits from entities that would um take the take exception to the to the bylaw um so um i didn't really have anything else to discuss unless there's questions about it but then i'd leave it to stefanie with regard to process um my guess is um i think the town council met for the first time um this pat maybe last week or this week it was even and sworn in their new members and so forth i i don't know whether uh there was anything on this older bylaw that was raised to the uh priority of the very first meeting no i can answer that so they met yesterday they were sworn in and i think it'll be a while before this even comes up i mean okay it it's not going to be a priority item i think they've got they still have to determine who's going to be in which committees um who's going to chair the committees there's you know there's a lot of details that they have to work out so i would say if it happened before the end of february i'd be surprised honestly it being a discussion or a vote i'd be even coming up as a discussion there's no definitely not a vote it was not asked to be a vote at this time if you recall what the recommendation from the committee is is that it go to if you referred to the crc for review and refinement because it's not really complete yet so they would refine it and then it would um and then it would also be we've also asked that it go to various department heads and others to review and comment on as well and but it would be sent from them which that hasn't happened yet either so right right so we oops sorry go ahead i'm just gonna ask that so the crc is that is that a committee of the council correct and so it has to be re-established um by the council the new council correct for that before it would be uh referred to them yeah okay gotcha yeah so it's going to be a while before all of that happens right okay so i think what we should do is maybe not keep this on as a um as a regular as a regular agenda item but we should keep it sort of in the background if anybody wants to discuss it let us know we'll stick it back on and also there are the regular solar updates anyway uh every other week so if there's something else that comes up i suppose we can chat about it then meanwhile i i still haven't looked at the whole bylaw the draft that's there i just haven't had time um but i encourage everybody to go ahead and take the time to have a look at it including me i i did have a couple of questions or question or two on do we know if the uh state attorney general office has reviewed solar bylaws and other communities across the states besides pelham and shirtsbury if there is a town that has drafted a solar bylaw it gets reviewed by the ag's office that's the process if it is a city it is not okay i i guess i was should have said have they rejected any parts of other towns filter bylaws across the state that we know of do we might know that more than i or don i think i i think i read some place that leverage is subject to a lawsuit um i don't know where i read that shirtsbury certainly is is it a lawsuit maybe it's i believe so there's a lot of road signs that indicate that shirtsbury is being sued yeah i'm not sure if the bylaw is being sued or whether that project is being pursued against the project itself i thought the town of shirtsbury was being sued is what i got i know there are lawsuits pending yeah you know relating to um the reasonableness of restrictions on solar sider i i know that i know the land court has a case and um and i think i read someplace else so i'll take a look at that for the next time we meet because i know there are lawsuits out there that are actually directed at the particular provision that you all noted doing the provision in mass general laws that basically says you can only restrict solar developments with certain findings um and you know public health welfare and and whatever um safety i know i know the meaning of that language is being tested in the courts and i know that there's been some proposed legislation to change that um it's i don't think i don't know how far along it's it is advanced but people are hoping some people are hoping to change that particularly in respect to solar um the the one thing that caught my eye both in the the shirtsbury letter and the pelham letter from the attorney general's office was the both letters mentioned that um the uh that chapter 40 section 3's prohibition against unreasonable regulation will turn in part on whether the bylaw promotes rather than restricts the legislative goal and this is referring to the mass massachusetts 2050 decarbonization roadmap so i'm i don't know how much weight these letters from the attorney general's office has but this idea that a bylaw needs to promote a legislative goal rather than restrict it is intriguing and even perhaps scary um because how does that work and how do you interpret whether it's promoting a legislative goal or not uh the night i would argue that my reading of the amorce bylaw the draft bylaw it does not promote the 2050 decarbonization roadmap goals it simply restricts solar more than it does then that exists today i guess that's yeah i guess that i mean sort of um at least sort of the primer that we got from christine bestrup with regard to zoning i mean zoning is really about a restrictive exercise um uh so you know obviously there's it's restricted because you have to have these set-asides uh and these permits and requirements and process and so forth so it's all about restrictions um right interesting uh so it probably does read has very very restrictive uh but uh whether it's unreasonably or but or whether it sort of promotes um the opportunity to cite so solar well you know well-sided solar um i guess you have to sort of read what's left after you restrict everything take look at all the reduce you know consider all the restrictions yes and yeah part of it part of the other parts of the letter we're sort of pointing at there there seems to be needs to be ample land available for solar facilities in a community and if there is then restrictions of various degrees are okay if there is not then those restrictions are not okay but ample land all we know from the tracer lane study is that less than two percent is not yeah which is a somewhat as you say somewhat ironic because in amherst at least you know two percent or so is kind of the target that ecac came up with in our memo last year that would be in a what we what we considered an appropriate amount that wouldn't be the case for the more densely populated communities yeah right so so thank you steve i'd forgotten that that was the reason we put this on the agenda again just because we wanted to hear a little more about about you got cut off last time uh so jesse go ahead just a quick clarifying question and you may have said this and i just i didn't hear it right are they considering amherst a city or a town amherst is a city yeah it's a city that's where i understood it city known as the town of amherst once the charter passed we became a city that that was and it's confusing it's yeah it is confusing because we're the city known as a town yeah exactly thank you well i would still i haven't developed my ideas much farther on this but i mentioned them before i would like to sort of see if there's a way we might be able to have the bylaw actually promote solar on the lands that are most suitable for it while maintaining restrictions on the lands that are most suitable for other things like agriculture and open spaced and forests so i will still try to bring up some kind of a memo to share with the committee here for for discussion at a future meeting right that all makes really good sense all right so we'll we'll keep talking about this as needed if you have something specific steve that you want us to look at let's make sure we put it on the agenda but um for next week i think we'll leave it off just as an update maybe in the update yeah that's fine and done yeah and i do look forward if don comes across any other court cases or rulings um i'd be very interested in hearing about that so thank you don yeah and let me just ask um Stephanie i mean in terms of the um the town legal counsel won't really review the bylaw until the council is done with it correct they won't read it until it's final yeah yeah gotcha or it's well yeah it's a final draft they'll review um and i did want to remind you all that greg garrison is scheduled to come to the next meeting so there will be an hour 5 30 to 6 30 with his presentation okay so that's the next thing that's on the agenda and i really want to talk about that because i'm out of town for this next one which is sad because i really wanted to hear this but i will listen to the tape afterwards i just won't have a chance to ask my questions um i will certainly listen to it i might be able to attend i can't promise though it depends i'm going to be in coaster recon vacation and if i am going scheduling a hike or a kayak that afternoon i'm going hiking or kayak so whatever it's raining and we're sitting around i will definitely join the meeting um so who is going to we need a flyer we need advertising we need something to get sent out to our you know how does this get advertised Stephanie how have we done this okay so in the past what we've done is one of you have developed a flyer um and then you've gotten it to me and i have submitted it to the director of communications who sent it out and posted it on social media and did all kinds of wonderful things immediately however we no longer have a director of communications that works for the town so what i will be doing is sending it to it and requesting that they get it out um i will do my best to convey urgency for getting it on social media i think honestly the places it has the most impact are you know the social media and the website and i can i can certainly get it you know ask that it go on the website immediately um in our news item so it would run on the news for like a week or so so i can request that uh or i could request that they do it for the whole time i had volunteered actually to pull together a flyer and just i didn't get to it before the holidays and i'm only just back and i've got a budget due on friday so um i haven't had a chance to do it yet but i don't it wouldn't take much to pull a flyer together and i could probably do it tomorrow morning first thing it shouldn't be hard to do and that way if you're okay with it i can just you know if you're all right with me just drafting something and getting it out because really it just needs the information that'd be great if you'd also send copies to all of us stephanie that way we send it to our i have a you know just like to send it to you know this sort of thing let people know about it um i would really like to see a crowd show up at this it'd be great if we got people interested um there's so many things to talk about uh and i'm sorry do we have a quorum for next week yes i believe so and remind me who our co-chair is jesse uh jesse jesse yeah exactly jesse jesse would would you then facilitate greg's appearance and everything yeah that sounds great cool that's the 13th no i'm sorry 17 the 17th rather yep okay okay can someone can i sign snacks to somebody just paste them on the cameras i need a nice nut bread i can give you know push start you'd like to be in receipt of bring it back bring it by yeah all right um yeah see that's the thing oh well we're on that topic i'm sorry i have um because we were going to talk about um additional speakers and i had someone reach out to me from sunbug solar um woman named lidia who uh was interested she she watched our last meeting and saw that we were looking for solar presenters and had offered to have to come speak uh on a topic that we might be interested they said they she said they had experience um that they could speak on battery storage and evs in addition to solar but also that they were involved in the months in agriboltake project and that they're getting involved they've got others that are quote in the works so if we were um interested in having her come and speak about agriboltaics she'd be happy to they also have experience with uh grazing sheep and solar projects partnered together so if you would like that as a follow-up to greg's presentation we could do that i think that would be great i just worry if she's with sunbug solar is she going to be able to do a this is the same question we had last year with uh one of the heat pump providers right as long as she realizes that this you can't be an advertisement for sunbug oh yeah that's i'm very clear with folks you know at least when i talk to them that they can't do that okay and so it sounds like the topic could be a lot of different things but uh agriboltaics battery storage evs um well we could ask her to focus so or yeah pick pick something because i think all those things are are good which one does she want to talk about um or maybe integrate them all into some sort of a talk on you know all the all the other things around solar that that weren't covered somehow or or i think so i go ahead dwayne yeah i was just gonna say i think um and um laura's kind of driven this a bit and she's not here today but um so the idea was to we you know we we've liaise and engage with the solar bylaw that all has to do with ground mounted solar basically and large larger scale if you will agriboltaics was significantly addressed there um there is actually a good recording of agribol of i think three or four agriboltaic experts that we had at one of those meetings um didn't include sunbug but several others that i think was very well um done so that's something we could refer to i guess i i'm sort of motivated i guess to move forward with laura's leadership on on sort of the built environment particularly in how ecac can be a motivating um factor with our community in that regard um yeah and if there's already a good agriboltaics uh presentation which i did not watch dwayne i'm sorry but if it's recorded we could just show it again and have a discussion or something like that if people are interested um but it sounds like maybe we do want to get laura's input um uh and maybe the better topic would be battery storage in ev since that's more solar in the built environment we're um i don't know if sunbug does it but parking lot pv systems uh would be somebody who does has some expertise right um on that steve's needs to keep moving around there and so okay so you want me to tell her to focus on battery storage evs and parking canopies i'm not sure if sunbug does parking canopies but if they do if they do and that's just an idea um or should we wait for laura's input on this before we decide to invite her um that's the only question it seems that if you're um i mean if you're you were looking for a bunch of topics right so i think if it doesn't hit the nail on the head for what laura was looking for you could always find another there's i mean i don't think we're at a loss of finding solar developers around that would be more than happy to speak all right so let's let's do that then let's ask her to speak on more on solar in the built environment if she has a presentation she can give on that if everyone is in agreement there and i will have to give her dates i mean we're saying the next meeting but it may not work for her schedule so i can find out if she could do the next meeting and if not i'm not obviously the 17th the following the next following meeting after right after greg and do you want it to be the do you want it to be like the second meeting in february or so that we don't have you know because it's going to take an hour of your meeting time so do you want to devote that much let's try for the second meeting in february or later than that so the earliest would be the second meeting in february okay all right okay and that certainly gives time for laura to weigh in too okay uh where are we on the schedule um so i think that's good we have we're putting together the educational series on solar in the built environment um staff updates are next um well a few things were covered that i was going to address one was the january 22nd dpu public hearing which paul mentioned earlier right um and then i also just spoke about sunbugs solar so that's covered um i wanted to let you all know that an rfp has gone out for a vendor for the valley bike share program um well it's you know it's a next step it's not a guarantee but um we're we're needing to have uh vendors respond to the rfp for us to have a better sense of how much the program will cost communities there are eight communities or eight well i should say seven communities and umass that are participating and so it depends on how much a program will be and we'll have to have a sense once we get responses from the vendors um but we are looking for a goal to get it established again for this spring of 2024 so that's what we're shooting for um there's also going to be a convening of legislators uh that i've been in contact with uh rep dome mindy dom about and mindy and i are working together um but mindy's reached out to legislators uh both at the um local uh the state and federal level but then also we're reaching out to the um executives and all the participating communities as well to convene to sort of talk about the future of bike share and its long term uh sustainability so uh that that's not going to be a public session that's going to be a and by invitation only but it'll be an opportunity for us to hopefully do some um i don't know some brainstorming to sort of see what we can come up with um i did mention very quickly too that um i have a budget due on friday it's pretty much going to be similar to what i submitted last year which was the request for an additional staff person um i i don't know at this point if i'm going to ask for the administrative support as well i suppose i could um i don't know if it's better or hinders or helps to have a request for two but um the big ask is primarily for the energy manager position um i'm also going to be asking for some funding for operations as well uh then um just an update and lory may want to cover this too but uh we did interview four new members for the ecac we had two folks that we identified i'm not going to announce who they are yet because i don't know if they've been asked and have accepted um so that follow-up happens at the town manager level but they don't actually they don't actually get to start participating until their appointments are confirmed by the town council and again this could take some time um i think that was the case with um i think even maybe dawn and lory it was a while before you actually started serving because we have to wait for the confirmation staff and so it you know again it could be like february or even march before we get those folks on board hopefully it will be sooner than later you said two more two more yes so so there are two vacancies right now the thing is in june some of you will be your terms will be up again and um i think what has been the case you know you all have obviously three year terms technically you're not supposed to do more than two consecutive three year terms but i think in some cases um depending on where you landed and whether you're filling somebody else's term you might be able to get reappointed again so some of you may choose to sign off that i mean sometimes people will be asked if they want to stay and continue um so i think you know that's kind of at the time manager's discretion as to you know whether it's time for people to sort of you know move on and get new membership or whether they'll ask for people to continue so um so i'll be reaching out to those folks whose terms are winding down just to see if they're even interested in being reappointed so that's i think that's my update for today it's deafening you're welcome and i just want to um say i'm also pretty excited about the new members who we can't name yet but uh they'll bring some pretty nice skills and and background to the committee um all right so other updates from sorry i have one more that i totally forgot about and i literally just had the meeting before this meeting potentially it depends on it but potentially the dashboard will be launched we're shooting for next monday january 8th for the community dashboard to be launched on sustainability and so um i'm excited i think it looks great and i hope you all are pleased with it so look for it i'll look for it before i i will certainly let you know you will be getting links you will all be getting a link when it goes out excellent oh that's great to hear um okay so remember updates any updates um i go ahead stella then steve yeah i think i talked about this before it might make more sense for me to talk about this with stefanie offline but i do plan to go on ecac parental leave in march oh i didn't know i think some of you do that some of you maybe maybe didn't know that um but for quorum reasons because i think my term ends in june i'm going to take eight weeks of parental leave from like my day job um so maybe stefanie and i should talk about if it makes it more sense for quorum reasons to actually like resign earlier um we can we can talk offline yeah uh because it might be oddly timed uh i suspect the new members will be in by then by early march you know i would hope so i hope so yeah i mean i say early march it's it's likely to be early march it could be any time from mid february on yeah okay so uh well hopefully we'll have new members and it won't be an issue stella because we hate to lose you have you you've only started one term at this point right or no uh yeah but i don't think i would be up for a term with a newborn okay so i'm doing a term with a small child oh i see it's resigned earlier rather than later to yeah it's a disadvantage of not seeing each other in person i didn't know you were uh with with congratulations on that and no idea and hope everything goes well yeah that's wonderful i thought you were at that meeting but um also i do see you in holt earth every so often yeah i mean like should buy a head down yeah congratulations stella that's awesome stella that sounds much more important than this oh thanks it'll be fun it'll be more chaos other updates go ahead steve i just had an announcement to make um upcoming on january 22nd will be a um session by mass autobahn an in-person session it's at the banks community center in amherst it's titled growing solar protecting nature um public presentation in the for the pioneer valley and you have to register but it's free um if you search for that growing solar protecting nature and throw in mass autobahn you'll probably find it easily but i'll share the link with stefanie um i believe this will be a discussion of the report they put out i think in the fall uh with a similar title um basically promoting their analysis uh and then proposals for policy changes that would allow massachusetts to reach its decarbonization goals it's and its renewable energy goals with more solar on canopies and and rooftops than on particularly forests um i've signed up i'm gonna go i i like their policy idea i have some critiques of their analysis um and some of the headlines from the report they did earlier but i'm gonna go and see what they have to say and i'd encourage i think it'd be interesting for some of the rest of you to go to that as well do you know what time i'm steve yes let me double check i'll go back to that where to go there um it is six to seven thirty p.m. monday january 22nd it's going to be at the banks community center you do need to register uh online but if you go to it's a growing solar protecting nature mass autobahn that you should be able to find it with the google search or your favorite search engine search actually here's the here's the it's mass autobahn.org slash growing solar all one word growing solar i've registered so i'll see you oh excellent okay yeah it'd be some interesting discussion yeah um other announcements stefanie do you know there's the local energy advocates is having an event is that oh yeah a public event that could be announced here or is that more of their private group event i don't know about it so and i doesn't i don't know either jesse or lory might know more yeah it's their um retreat right if you're a member of lea i think you're invited uh membership means being on the mailing list so at least i think that's what it is that was my impression i am going to try to go but as it's t minus 40 hours or so to plane trip i might not quite make it it's sunday afternoon yeah it's just coming sunday yeah it's my plan yeah i was invited and asked to speak about a topic that i'm not an expert on but i'll do it anyhow which is solar and parking lot canopies uh as an option for what sort of i think the focus of the retreat or at least a focus of the retreat is um projects that the local energy advocates can take on uh significant projects that they can take on so there's a series of speakers on different potential such projects um that's about all i know about it um but so i'm going to be there uh that was my impression too they're gonna they've been trying to find a project to work on for a long time so this is their big project they do a lot of little things but um and it's if you're a so if you're on their email list and if people wanted to get on their email list so they can attend and where is it being held it's online it's zoom it's zoom so it's a zoom meeting yeah yeah okay um it's like it went out to the entire lea you're on there dwayne i'm seeing you yeah tim mcdonald ashley muspratt bill keo hill and you and and rustford and jones is going to facilitate it so you're on there it it's an impressive list of speakers yeah yeah it's a nice list of speakers it's kind of an awkward time i hope it's a rainy afternoon so i don't feel bad about sitting inside sorry what time is that again uh two to five p.m ball is yeah this is my problem too if it's really nice out i need to get out on sunday afternoon so i'm not sure if i'm going to go to this or not but it's online i plan to try to go it's supposed to snow saturday into sunday just fyi i don't know if it'll be still snowing it too but might be perfect that's what i heard potentially well if there's snow on the ground i'll be outside with sledding in hand if if there's enough absolutely or skiing or shoveling and it's they've allocated three hours for this so it's two to five p.m and if anybody wants to get on the list i can just contact arcy duMont um i can send you an email just contact me and i'll put you in touch all right any other updates okay if there are no other updates we need agenda items for the next meeting i think is next right yep uh so next meeting we have our continue our solar discussion solar the built environment i it's craig garrison right yes yep yep um and that's 630 uh 530 to 630 or 430 correct 530 to 630 all right and for the first hour of the meeting what do we have i think laura was said she's willing to do an update on cup 28 love to hear about that so um and i think she said she could do it at that meeting we could just put it on potentially and if not i'll take it off right okay love to hear about that um uh there's also let's see where have we been today a continued discussion of the solar of the of the um next education series solar in the built environment discussion so we need to discuss that a little bit for any other big issues coming up that we need to be talking about any policy issues at the state or federal of the state or local level we need to be chiming in on i guess we'll get a follow up um so i know still is not usually it would be uh solar and what's the other one the updates the updates this week where heat pumps and transportation next week it would be so and so right paste is the other one yep so so let's do that hopefully there's some news with pace um but i think instead of a solar update why don't we uh still it sounds like there'll probably be an update next time so you want to give us an update well maybe there won't be because it'll just have maybe have been published in the gazette but we should at least i'll at least call the driving schools to see if they talk about it at all which is okay no so maybe put that under updates instead of um solar again since we sort of did solar they just jog it a little bit if that's okay with you doing and steve yeah typically it alters it alternates so the next one would be right pace and transportation i think oh well no transportation today that's why i'm saying it would be solar and pace but let's substitute out solar for transportation again because there'll probably be more of an interesting update on that got it i think also it'd be more useful to have a solar discussion after we hear from greg yeah well that'll be the next would be the meeting after exactly so i'm saying just jog those two let's change the order got it anything else on anyone's mind for things we should be discussing if not let's go ahead and i don't think there's anybody attending so there's no attendees no public comment then and if there's nothing else if anyone does come across i'm more in war as i have more time to spend on this coming across issues that i personally you know respond to and that might be interesting for ecac to respond to so if anyone sees anything that you know we should be making some noise about or sending a letter in for or just doing something or has an idea for other education series stuff any way to outreach to the public to get folks more interested one example i found out this week that there was a little gathering holiday gathering down my block i met a couple new like neighbors last week and one of them it turns out is part of some pilot program for geothermal which has come up in various contexts i didn't know anybody there were 30 projects around the state that were awarded some some what do you call it an example program what's the word i'm looking for pilot pilot and she got one of them so they're doing a study at her house unfortunately i'll be out of town for it or i'd go to see what they're doing and this is just an echo hill there's someone who happens to have a flat front yard so they can get a drilling rig in and she's part of some pilot project which i think would be very interesting to hear more about so i'll be calling her and asking her how that's going and if there's something interesting for her to talk about maybe i'll ask her to say a few words to us if you hear about things like that going on it's always interesting you know the more you talk stuff up the more people get interested in doing their own transitions right the more you see stuff like that well is the pilot i'm sorry is the pilot project is there some sort of funding for it that i i missed that i think it's mostly uh i don't know for sure i think it's mostly there is there is a pilot funding for geothermal but i thought it was larger projects yeah um this might be just of a you know zero percent loan for some ridiculous money yeah i'm not sure what it is but uh that's what i want to find out from her so it came up at a party where it was hard to get into the details um but i have you can get a zero percent loan i think up to like 50 000 now yeah um but there's some other programs you must have applied through because uh you know like you see was pretty clear that this was part of some pilot program there were only 30 people throughout the state i remember applying for something like that myself a while back uh maybe it's a whole house electrification or something along those lines um there've been several of them through the state where they do these you know they do some sort of a thing they want to get everybody to do on just a few houses to try to in different seed communities to try to get people to get interested in it so i'm not sure which program is that something i want to figure out what one thought came to mind i i know there's various initiatives happening at the state level that are sometimes hard to learn about especially the early initiatives might we consider inviting one of our elected representatives to come to a meeting and give us an update on you know what's the latest things happening in the legislature do you um i've been in contact a lot with midi dome lately do you want me to see if i can ask her if she's willing that would be great yeah it'd be nice to just have a yeah have her as a guest and hear hear updates um we might think of some questions to ask but i think that would be nice nice exposure yeah so focused on specific in legislation that's germane to the working of this group but like one of the things i know that there's something on even bike share that's um something that normally you don't discuss but might be some interesting uh and i think natalie blay is sponsoring that legislation so um are sponsoring that bill so we could ask her and she might actually recommend that we invite natalie blay you know um so yeah it might also help if we you know there are always so many bills in the works at different stages it might be useful for us to come up with a list of bills we want updates on you know there are these things yep that would be more useful i think because you know i think if we were asking for something specific that would be easier so why don't we all give that some thought and we can talk about a little more next time are there specific bills so homework is to you know spend a little time looking around to see your in your inbox for all that stuff that keeps coming through one after another for which bills might be most interesting for us to ask a representative about which issues another category would be if she knows of programs that either communities municipalities can sign up for incentives or even individual citizens like the the heat pump program you're just describing it if there's information on those like where can we go to learn about them that would be helpful okay all right thanks everyone this is uh you know the work of this committee and other groups like this that i've been involved with give me gives me hope back to the excellent all right and again the article was not saying we should stop it was saying we should just keep doing everything that we're doing because it's having an impact it's having an impact just dig down and keep doing it keep doing it okay and i think that brings us to the end of the agenda right correct so is there a move to adjourn sure i moved to adjourn no no objections like no objections what is it called a it's unanimous unanimous have a great trip lori yeah yeah excellent and uh i really look forward to watching that tape if i don't catch the next meeting i'm sorry i'm not going to be here right take care thanks everybody thanks bye night good night