 our first community meeting that is post the era of Paul Costello. For those of you who don't know, Paul was our longtime executive director, 21-year tenure at the helm of VCRD. And last week was his last week. He's moved on. And so we are adjusting. He's not with us tonight, but we are really excited to have a new executive director, Brian Lowe, as part of our team at the Council on Rural Development. So welcome, folks. We will give it a minute or two. We always find people sort of trickle in as we get started. So I think we're really going to get going in a couple of minutes here. So if you'll just bear with us, we're going to let people gather. If anyone wants to use the chat to introduce yourself, sometimes that can be a nice thing to do. If you are in Rochester or one of the surrounding towns, maybe let folks know what part of the region you live in. That can be a helpful thing for us to just get people placed. So if anyone wants to introduce themselves in chat, that would be great as we get going here. And by the way, I'm John Copans. I'm the program director for the Climate Economy Model Communities Program here at the Vermont Council on Rural Development. It's wonderful to see all of these faces gathering on the screen. You know, we, as an organization, we've had to adapt to these different times. Normally, we would be gathering somewhere in a group space. We might have shared a meal together. And to be honest, we miss that at VCRD. We really love getting together in person. But we also feel like it's really important still to gather even in an online way and to keep doing our work. So huge appreciation to you all for being willing to get on a screen tonight and spend your evening thinking about Rochester and the surrounding towns and how we rally together as communities. All right, I feel like I should go ahead and get started because we have a very busy evening. And Nick, you know what? If you want to go ahead, I think we're going to share screen with some slides. The first slide is just an agenda slide that'll be helpful for folks to see. But here's how we're going to structure things tonight, just so folks have a feeling for what's ahead. We are going to just spend 15 minutes as a whole group gathered. And then pretty quickly here, we're going to get out into breakout groups. And we're going to really have the meat of our conversation tonight will be a set of two different breakout slots, four total breakout groups, because we're doing two times two, as you can see there on the agenda. But I want to give a little bit of context in some opening remarks before we go into those breakouts. And so let me just grab my notes. So this meeting is convened by an organization called the Vermont Council on Rural Development. I'm a program director at the Council on Rural Development. I've got some co-workers who are helping with tonight's events. I want to just quickly give you a sense of who we are as an organization before we get started. Our mission as an organization is really to work with communities around Vermont, with Vermont's small towns around the state to help them achieve their visions for vitality and prosperity of those communities. And we do that primarily as an organization that's a facilitator and a convener. We have hosted town-based conversations in probably over 100 different communities in all corners of the state of Vermont. As Paul Costello used to say, we probably convene more conversations than any other organization in the state at the town-based level. Nice to see some nods there from Senator Clarkson. That's good verification. And what we don't do when we come into a community is we don't come in with preset solutions for what's best for you. Instead, what we do is we provide a vehicle and a conversation for you all to come together as a community or a set of communities to think about your future, to identify some priorities that you want to work on, and then to think about, OK, now that we've identified those priorities, how are we going to get them done? That's really the core of our work as an organization. We're neutral. We're nonpartisan. We're very intentionally nonpartisan because we think that's fundamental to our work in building trust in communities and in being this facilitative organization. Tonight's conversation is part of a program that we call the Climate Economy Model Communities Program. And man, that's a mouthful, isn't it? But I want to just tee up for you a little bit about what when we use the expression climate economy at the Council on Rural Development, I just want to give you a little bit of context around that. I've come to think of the climate economy in a few different ways. The way that we started thinking about the climate economy was that when we think about this global challenge called climate change, there are all of these nations and all of these businesses and organizations that are trying to figure out the best ways to tackle climate change, essentially to wean our economy from fossil fuels and to figure out new ways of doing things and new ways of living that don't contribute to climate change. And essentially, that's like a competition, a global competition and Vermont can compete in that global marketplace. And if we can figure out the models for tackling climate change here in Vermont, it's going to create job opportunities and economic opportunity here in Vermont. There are, let's say you figure out a new way for Vermonters to use less energy while still heating their homes. That is something that you could market out to the rest of the world. So there's tremendous job opportunities in being the place that solves those problems. But here's another way that I think about the climate economy. I really think about it at the household scale as well. Efficiency Vermont, who's part of our conversation tonight, every year or so, they do a report called the Energy Burden Report. And what it shows is that Vermonters spend nearly $5,000 typically on their energy costs as a household. And half of that is just filling up the gas in their cars and trucks. And so if you think about a typical household budget, that's a big piece of the pie. And there's opportunities for households to achieve savings there. And honestly, when we help our households save money, what we do is we invest those dollars back into the economy. Because what people do then is they have more money to spend on other things in their community. The final way that I think about the climate economy here that we might think about the climate economy is really, I would say, most informed by the last year and a half as we've grappled with the pandemic. What we are reminded of over the last 18 months is that Vermont's really not an island. We suffer or benefit from all of these trends that happen globally. And the pandemic is a real example of that. And as we think to a future, let's take an example. Vermont has become a more attractive place for people while with remote work becoming a real possibility for more people around the country. And frankly, rural places like Vermont, because we're a little more spaced out and we were seen as a safe place to live, what we know is that our communities, all of a sudden the houses in our communities are getting more expensive because people are moving to our rural communities in a way that they never used to. And what we're actually already hearing about is other people moving to Vermont because of climate trends around the United States. The wildfires in the West have people sticking up and moving and Vermont is increasingly an appealing place to be. So I just share that as an example of the kind of trends that we see, both nationally and globally, that Vermont is gonna be impacted by. And so with the reason I'm sharing all of that as context is when we talk about the Climate Economy Model Communities Program, the question that I would frame to you all, to Rochester, to Hancock, to Granville, to Stockbridge, to Pittsfield, like the Quintown region that we think of when we think of this conversation, what I would say is, how do you think about the future of these communities what does a vital region look like, a prosperous region look like, and how do you plan for some of those changes that we think are coming? And how do we do that in a way that's not divisive but unifying? That's the real mission of our work in this Model Communities Program. With that, and I wanna make a quick note about the Model Communities Program, we only go where we're invited to go. And it was the Rochester Select Board actually that said, we would like to participate in this Model Communities Program. And with that, I actually wanna quickly call on your Rochester Select Board Chair, somebody I've gotten to know a little bit, we share a passion for spikes actually. Dune Hendricks is just gonna say a word of welcome. So Dune, if you wanna go ahead and unmute, it would be great to just hear a welcome. I don't think I am muted, am I? You're good, yep. I'm good, all right, well, welcome. I guess I'm the late comer. I was running, but I'm here I am now and thank you all for being here. I'm hoping we have representatives from the larger community ranging up and down the valley because really this is much more than just the town of Rochester, this is gonna take teamwork to move into the future and working together, sharing our energy and our ideas. And I would hope that one of the goals, the tasks that everyone here could go away with is how to inspire and enlist more people to join so it doesn't just fall down to the same collection of people that are always carrying the load because it all matters to all of us and it affects all of us and we're very thankful for John's offer to come and help guide exploration of what we can do to be proactive moving into the future. Thank you Dune, we are, and I have to say for us as staff at the Council on Rural Development, the opportunity to get to work in communities like Rochester and the surrounding towns is really a privilege, we feel so lucky to get to meet great folks and your point about sharing the load is really right on point because actually the next thing I wanna do is thank a few folks who carry some load in terms of doing some work in the community. I've had, we engaged a steering committee at the beginning of this process to they came up with the name Rochester Area Climate Initiative and they came up with some plans in terms of launching this process but I wanna give a shout out specifically to three folks who've been real allies as I've gotten my feet under me and making connections in the community and that's Catherine Shankman and Vic Robato and finally Jeff Gephardt who's the energy coordinator in Rochester and just a little mention of Jeff Boyd he worked so hard in terms of doing thinking about the energy opportunities for Rochester and he's really been a great partner in this work. So just a big thank you to that team and thank you Dune and to the select board for the invitation to come to Rochester. All right, I've gotta quickly do a couple more things here. We are really honored and maybe just stop sharing for a second Nick and then I'm gonna ask you to share again because it would be nice for us to be able to see more people. As part of this opening process we have a visiting team of folks and I want to recognize them as we get started. I'm just gonna run through these names quickly because we gotta stay on schedule here or Alex Tolstoy from the preservation trust of Vermont is with us. Becca White from Efficiency Vermont Dan Courier from the Vermont Agency of Transportation Erica Hoffman-Pice from Green Mountain Economic Development Corp Josh Hanford, a neighbor from a neighboring town who's the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development Peter Gregory, the director of Two Rivers Aduquici Regional Commission and Sarah Peary from Green Mountain Power are here with us tonight. You'll get a sense of the role of that visiting team as we move forward but huge appreciation for them for quote unquote coming to the Rochester region tonight to listen to all you have and to provide some perspective. So thank you all as visiting team members. All right, Nick, if you could bring, oh, and let me just quickly mention and introduce our VCRD staff too. We've got Margaret McCoy, we've got Alyssa Johnson, we've got Nick Kramer, and we've got Jenna Kalosky and we will be facilitating and serving as scribes for tonight's event. All right, Nick, if you could go to the next slide, you know, I wanna just give you a little bit of quick context about how this process is gonna roll forward. We are tonight, it's the kickoff of this process. The real goal of these breakout sessions is to get your ideas for the future of the Rochester region. We've got some topics for those conversations but let me tell you, those topics are not meant to be hard guardrails to the conversation. Any ideas that you've got for the future of the region are welcome. We will facilitate those conversations tonight and we've got scribes taking careful notes about that. And then, coming up November 1st, we are gonna come reconvene a group of folks at all of you and more, my hope is, to make some decisions about the priorities you wanna work on as a region. And what I will do between tonight and then as I will take all of your ideas, I'll sort of map them out and identify some core areas of work and I'll bring them back to you. We'll probably have somewhere between 10 and 20 different possible ideas of areas of action and you'll make some decisions with dot voting. We're hoping that'll be in-person at Pierce Hall on the evening of November 1st. That's a Monday evening, so mark your calendars. And then a final formal step in the process is, after you identify those three priorities, our hope is that many of you will sign up to do some work and just like Doom was saying, some new folks hopefully get involved as we go through this so that we can share that load and then we will bring task forces together to really do some strategic planning around those priorities and then move towards implementation. So that's sort of the general game plan for this process. For tonight's conversation, oh actually Nick, bring up the next slide before I get to tonight's conversation, if that's all right. Not everybody wants to be on Zoom, not everyone wants to participate in a meeting. I just wanna mention that we've got a couple other ways to get the ideas into this process. We've got an online survey and we've got that link there. We're also having an in-person forum at Rochester Elementary School on October 12th. That'll be pretty similar to these online meetings. Any of you are welcome, but I would really encourage you to spread the word that's happening next Tuesday evening and then just to mention that we do maintain a website for this Rochester region climate initiative that I would encourage you to check out. We'll keep that updated as we go. All right, so now with that, I think it's time to get into the breakout groups because that's really where our action is gonna happen tonight. And let me just tee up what we're gonna do in those breakout conversations. The first two, Nick, you can go ahead and bring up the next slide actually. Oops. The first, Nick, if you wanna bring up, I think the next slide has some directions for us for the breakouts. Yeah, there we go. So here are the first two breakout conversations. Number one is around economic development, job creation and transportation. Number two is around energy opportunities for towns, homes and businesses. And what we would like you to do, this might feel a little complicated, but it's really not so hard, is if you can rename yourself with the number of the breakout group that you wanna be in, and I'll show you, maybe I'll do it for myself right now, I'm going to go to number two. So you see how my name just, I just added a two in front of it. If you can do that to pick your breakout group, that's gonna get us started here and we will put you into those breakout groups to get things going. So remember, one is economic development, number two is energy opportunities for towns, homes and businesses. And then the facilitators will guide the conversation from there once you are in your rooms. So with that, welcome. Hello, hello. You know what? Let's really quickly, because I think we have a small enough group, let's do a very quick round of introductions before we get into this conversation. And what I'm just gonna do as the facilitator for this is I'm just gonna call on people, just maybe give us your, just give us, let's just give names rather than add anything to it because we gotta move quicker here. So I'm looking to my left, Alex, you wanna just introduce yourself? Yeah, Alex Solstoy, Preservation Trust. Awesome, Becca. Becca White and I'm from Efficiency Vermont. James. I'm from Grandville, Vermont. Excellent, Chris. Chris Williams from Hancock. Super, Alyssa. Hi everyone, Alyssa Johnson, VCRD. Maureen, Maureen. Maureen Gannon, Rochester, Vermont. Wonderful, Peter. Peter Gregory, two Riverside-Iquichee Regional Commission. Jeffrey Gephardt. Jeffrey Gephardt. Sue. Dexter Vermont. Desu. Yeah. Sue Roboto, Rochester. Excellent. Sarah. Sarah, period, Remount Power. Thanks, Sarah. Gerard, if that's Gerardt, I'm just reading off a name here, so. Mary Beth Deller and Jerry LeBlond from Rochester. Hi, Mary. Diane. Diane Tietzel from Rochester. Christine. Christine Mayer, Rochester, Vermont. And Dune. And me from Rochester, Vermont, also. And Makayla. Maybe Makayla's a little... Well, welcome, everybody. Let's get started here. So, I... Oh, that mic isn't working. Oh, there's Carolyn. Hey, Carolyn, you want to say hi? Hi, I'm Carolyn from Rochester. Well, it's nice to meet you all. Here is how we're going to structure this conversation. Alyssa is our scribe, so just so you know, she is going to be busy taking notes tonight. And we are going to... Here's how we'll structure things. We have a little less than an hour. We're going to talk about the assets and challenges in relation to the energy use in homes and businesses and the municipalities, the towns. We're going to... And then we're really going to spend the bulk of our time with your ideas and opportunities in terms of addressing this topic. And then finally, in the last like seven, five or seven minutes, we will hear from the visiting team. My job in part is to watch the clock to make sure that we wrap this up right around 7.15, maybe 7.20 if we have a little more to cover. And just in terms of process, I think we're a small enough group that if you want to contribute something, the easiest way is just to unmute yourself. And when I see you unmute, I'll probably clue into it and I'll call on you when you can just talk. If you want, there's also a raise hand function, which you're welcome to use as well, but I'm not sure we'll need to do that. So here's my first question for you all. When we think about energy use in your towns, in these towns, what are some of the assets you have in terms of energy use? What are some of the things that you can work from as assets? Diane? Yes, I think because we have the substation in town, I think that that's a huge asset for using, if we're targeting transportation to put in chargers for electric vehicles, be it town owned or for visitors since we're a scenic byway. Aha, great. So you've got some good grid infrastructure with that substation. Is that what you're getting at? Yes. Awesome, great. Other assets, Maureen? Yeah, we have a defined town center. So to put in resources that we can, for the whole community to use, we have a place where, and room where things can go. Clarify that a little. Do you mean you have a village center in Rochester? Is that what you mean? Yes, we have a village center. We have a green. We have a place where people can gather. And if we had those kinds of charging resources for instance, that would be a place where people could come together. And we have restaurants and places in town. So if you want to need it to charge your car for an hour, there's someplace to go and sit, which is another problem with an electric car. Excellent, got it. That's great. James, you're unmuted. Maybe do you want to add something? Well, I guess probably our biggest asset as far as contributing to the community is that we do have a, well, I understand that we still have it, a three phase line coming out of that substation, running up to the bowl mill in Granville. So, if you are to have a large solar farm or whatever you would like to call it, you need to be fairly close to that line in order to be able to get it on the grid. Excellent. I'm impressed. Not many people know about the grid infrastructure in their communities. And already we've had two people mention that. So bravo. It's more important than I think most of us appreciate. So what are some other assets? I'll speak to one. I think one pretty substantial asset is that we are served by Green Mountain Power and their willingness and efforts towards moving into the future. I mean, where they're pretty good to work with, they offer lots of incentives. And I think we're lucky to have them as our supplier. Awesome. Thanks, Dune. Yeah, we often hear about those utilities around the country that don't quite have the same progressive mentality. So we're lucky on that front. Other assets, other, Sue. Tagging on to what Maureen said about a town center, I live in town and I can walk to all kinds of services in Rochester. We only have one car between the two of us, which is nice. Yeah, I have to say, having now been to town a few times in this work, that and like a grocery store is a perfect example. Like the fact that you can live in that village center and get to a lot of stuff by foot, it's pretty fabulous. Others, and wave at me like I see Makayla, like I know you're both on phone and on mic. If I'm not recognizing folks, just wave or just chime in to a small enough group that I don't think we're gonna interrupt each other. Yeah, Diane. Well, I would like to also mention that we are a farming community. So if anybody's ever interested in following the 100-mile diet, we can easily look at our local farms and our farmers markets to supply a lot of the local food to decrease the carbon admissions with transporting that tomato from California when we can easily get it at the farmers market in town. Excellent. And I'm guessing that I hadn't heard of the 100-mile diet, but I'm guessing that that is to eat things only from within 100 miles. Am I right about that? You are. Try to source your food from within 100 miles. A kind of prohibit fish, doesn't it? Say that, James. Sorry, I missed it. I say that kind of prohibits having fish in your diet. Well, you were some freshwater fish. Heck, some trout or some bass, maybe. Only if you have a pond. Dune. Speaking of water, it's not easily accessed from the regulatory front, but we do have this river running through our valleys. And in the past, that has served to provide power to, you know, in smaller areas. I know that's not currently a popular or easy thing, but if we're just throwing out resources that is one. Absolutely. Yep. James, go for it. And then Chris- Unfortunately, we've been kind of regulated out of that as a resource. Yes, let's not dive too deeply into that topic. We could spend the night on it, but yes. Chris, you have something? In all of the valleys here, we have a, excuse me, we have a wind resource that we're not using. And I've always looked at the turbine size over there in Bergen's that they use and thought that a turbine of that size, or maybe two of them, might find a place somewhere in our valley and hopefully then charge some battery storage that Green Mountain Power has been talking about. For our communities. So anyway, you know, over the decades, there's been a lot of demonization of the wind resource. And I think we need to give it a look. Great. Thanks, Chris. James, I didn't mean to interrupt. If you had another sort of part to your point before I. Well, I was just wondering if, you know, part of part of the task is ultimately going to come down to some kind of legislation. To come down to some kind of legislative action. In order to implement some of these ideas or whatever, or are we basically planning as if there are going to be no legislative changes? It makes a big difference. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. And one we constantly grapple with at the council on world development is there's a little bit of a chicken and egg thing. You kind of have to plan as though you're dealing with the current landscape. But let's be honest around climate change. The landscape is changing pretty radically. I mean, as folks know, there's a, there's a climate council that's coming up with a big list of recommendations for the legislature. And so on one hand, we have to be cognizant of what the current landscape is, but I also feel like. Let's not be too much hindered by that as well. And I guess my encouragement to you all is. Don't worry about the details. This is a brainstorming session. There is no bad idea in this conversation. So just throw things out there in terms of assets and challenges or ideas. We, we, what we don't probably want to do is get mired too much in the details, I would say. So other assets. Well, one asset that we're all sharing at different levels is the ecological evolution and breakthroughs that are leading to more efficiency. Absolutely. Yeah, Carolyn. Well, I'm thinking about how a beautiful natural environment. And we do have a wonderful forest collection around in this area and the importance of keeping it in balance with its needs so that it is cleaning the air for us. And we need, I can't give you the statistics about how much air one tree will do, but it's pretty, pretty impressive. So I think just thinking of that, you know, not just building new things, but preserving what we have to. Yeah. And appreciating and sort of putting a value on some of those things that you've already got. Great. Thanks, Carolyn. Christine. I would say we also have a lot of models and examples in our people. So we already have folks that are putting solar on their roof and have already been living off grid for many years and can share that knowledge and wisdom. I think that's a huge, awesome positive resource. If you hadn't said that when I was thinking of it myself, that's a great one. Yeah. Is that Mary there? Yes. We are a forest service community and forest service is very much interested in healthy forests and contributing to a healthy climate through healthy forests. Healthy forests. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, let me ask a question maybe on the asset front, which is my guess is that Rochester similar to a lot of places around Vermont, which is some people heat with Gordwood or pellets. And my first of all, am I right about that? Like maybe a nodding of like, and do you do, is there, maybe this is a, this is in, in the balance category, but do you have good local sources for Gordwood to, for those who do heat with Gordwood? I guess a curiosity. Yes. See some nodding of heads there. Great. All right, let's shift over to the challenges. So as we think about energy and how we heat our homes, where we get our electricity for homes and businesses for the town, as a whole, what are some of the challenges in terms of maybe using electricity or making transitions with energy? What are some of the challenges that you all face? And maybe I'll just seed it with one that James mentioned. Sometimes there's regulatory challenges. You know, we were talking about small hydro as an example where that's something that has a pretty difficult regulatory pathway. So that's an example of a challenge. Jeff, go for it. So we have a lot of old buildings. That belong to the municipality here in Rochester. And I know there's some old buildings in the rest of the Quintan region. That are difficult and expensive to speed for climate change. Great. Yeah. Old buildings. And it looks like I've frozen everybody. Oh, you came back. And that's both municipal buildings. Might you also apply that to the housing stock as well? Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. And probably businesses too. If we look around it's, there's, yeah. Okay. Great. What are some other challenges that folks can think of? Diane and then Mary after that. Yeah, so if we're looking towards transportation, for instance, and to try to get off the fossil fuels that we definitely need. I feel as a town to look at not only people that are home owners, but renters as well. And that includes businesses that, for instance, we're lucky enough at home to have solar electric and solar hot water. But if I was a renter, I wouldn't be able to put that up on my roof. So if I wanted to recharge my electric car or my electric truck, if I was needing it for work, my vision for that is to make either the substation or the gas station, make it into a station. And have that as a resource for the community where eventually gas stations in the long run are not going to make it financially on selling a cup of coffee. They need a revenue stream once gasoline starts pedering out. So what can we replace that business and help that business or those businesses thrive and still be there in the future? So my vision for Rochester is to have a gas station also have a station for power because if you're a renter, for instance, you can always go into town and soon had mentioned it, that we're lucky that a lot of people can walk into town, but some can't. So let them take their EV, go into town, go to the post office, charge it up, either at the gas station or at the substation, have lunch, go food shopping. By that time, you're home and you're fully charged. But renters will be able to do that. And even if you can't afford to have solar on your house or our houses that are older may not be able to support the weight of a solar array to go into town again and to charge locally to give options. I think that's a challenge. We need to, there's not enough options for people that can't afford to put solar on their house or renters that need an option that if they do want to go electric, and that's the trend for our transportation now, we need to give them options to do that in our local community. Got it. All right. Thanks, Diane. And let me just acknowledge that I think you did two things there. You did both the challenge and you suggested some solutions, which is great, I think. And I saw Alyssa typing away. There was probably a few ideas embedded in that. That was excellent. Thank you. Maureen. Yeah, a challenge. We've been having, we were still waiting to get, to find an electrician who can put our level two charges into our garage. So we need access to more people that are trained to do these things and to get them done in a timely fashion. I swear we could be sitting in the house, energy and technology committee right now. So I think that's great. You all are like naming the wisdom of a group like this is you're naming some of the fundamental challenge we face as a state. So I just have to say that. Thank you. That's, that's great. Others. Who else is trying to get a word in here? Oh yeah, Mary. Thanks. Yeah, Mary. I'm following up. I'm following up on something through Roboto listed as an asset, which is that we can walk anywhere in town. But one of the challenges is that we have either no sidewalks walks or very bad sidewalks. And they're especially treacherous in winter. And it is energy, expensive and difficult to maintain them safely. And I want to offer a solution at the same time, which is to have a solar powered heated sidewalk. So I think that's great. Yeah. I think that's great. All right. More walking around town and less driving. Thanks, Mary. Beth. All right. Who else other other challenges before we get into the idea phase, although I can tell we're going to the idea phase pretty quick here. Basic, the one. Basic challenge for where we live is, is the climate. I mean, it's gorgeous in the summer, but then in the winter, there's a lot of heat in our homes and transportation in terms of maintaining roads and maintaining vehicles. So that's the climate is which in the environment, which drew a lot of us here is, is one of the big challenges too. Great. Christine. On transportation. I would add that while the community, the Rochester village is walkable. You don't have to go very far before it's no longer. So. After root 73 and then going. Likewise, if they were bike paths or walking paths, you know, we could, we could link the community together in a way other than the highway. I think I got that, Jeff. Unfortunately, your connections a little bit. But I think. Yeah, the dispersed nature of settlement outside of the village center and maybe some other ways. For folks to get around in addition to cars. So that, that's just a bit. Christine. I'm taking notes as well. And big one. I haven't heard it. Cost. Just, just the cost of, of making all of these changes. To the community who's, who's. Yeah. The cost. I'm glad you name it. Cause sometimes it's like the most obvious things somehow get. We failed to mention them and absolutely. Yep. Thanks, Christine. Other challenges before we shift over. You know, I see somebody on the phone, like feel free. If I just, my fear as a facilitator is that somebody has something to say and doesn't feel like they have the opportunity to say it. So I think it's a good idea to be assertive in whatever way you need to, if you have something to say, and I'm for some reason missing the queue. All right. Well, let's shift over to ideas and opportunities for the future. And we've heard a couple already. We've, we're around. Like EV charging and, and maybe. Expanding the vision of a gas station that it's also a place where you be charging happens. And so what are some other ideas? Yeah, Diane. Well, I'm thinking that, uh, when we first started with the solar electric and solar hot water, we were the outliers really, um, with that we, we really didn't speak to, um, friends and family about it basically unless we were asked. So I think for an idea is to have the town of Rochester lead by example. So if we are looking at speaking from the town perspective, but we're asking the towns, asking the citizens to, um, think more electric and less fossil fuels that then I think maybe the town and I'm, I'm part of town, but I'm thinking specifically town owned properties leading by example, let's get solar on the roof. Um, make sure that all their electric appliances are on power strips. Uh, how can we reduce the water at in our buildings? Do we have low flow toilets? Do all the buildings have heat pumps? Um, can we get solar up there and how fast can we do it? Weatherization. I think that if the town itself leads by example, people will flock into the town office and say, you know, um, I'm interested in seeing that solar array on the town garage or I'm interested in seeing how that heat pump works. Um, next time I come to the town meeting. Um, I think things like that once they see it, I mean, you can hear it, but until you see it in action, it's a total, total different ball game. And then you start asking questions and thinking, you know, maybe I can do this at my home as well. But I think leading by example is the best thing also, uh, to get these ideas out into the community. Got it. And just to say it back, basically comprehensive look at all the municipal buildings and trying to transition all of them in a, in a lead by example, sort of a way. That's the, that's the discipline. Super. That's great. All right. James. Yeah, I was just cautioned you to make sure that. For example, the site is feasible. In terms of what it's going to produce for you, you know, places located in these narrow valleys. Do not get that much suns where it's. You know what I'm saying? We have to. I think there has to be a search in terms of where. The solar sites are. Are going to be successful. You don't want to demonstrate how not to do it. Thank you. Yes. And so do it right. Let's just add to that. Let's do it, whatever we're talking about here. Let's do it well such that it functions. As we intend it to and is feasible. Right. So. All right. What are some other, I think I saw some other. Yeah. Yeah. Moreen and then Jeff. Okay. Moreen and then Jeff, go for it. At my house. I have Tesla battery solar panels. I have two, one fully electric car and plug in hybrid car. So if there was a way to get those resources, who has what for people that are interested that they would know. One of their neighbors actually. I was in a car shop and I think. One of our problems is on some of these rows are fairly cars come pretty fast and they're fairly dangerous. But if we could do something about that infrastructure at some way day, some point, but also electric electric bikes, maybe a way to rent or have electric bikes around, because it would certainly be fun to go from my house to town. But I think it's a good idea to rent a bike. I think twice about it just because of the hills. Right. Couple of great ideas there. And let's add to the asset list. The fact that you have a bike shop. That's part of your assets that we. We should remember. All right. I saw some other. Hey, Carolyn, I'm going to call on you because you've had this idea about the park house that we've talked about. And I just sort of want you to mention it here. Can I do that to you? Oh, you're muted. So. All right. The other thing that came to my mind while conversation was going on that. We do have a very large older population. And it's increasing. And they don't have the funds or the resources to be able to do a lot of purchasing of these wonderful things that could happen. But there's one thing that everybody can do. In a tiny way. And I always think that it takes. Many grains of sand to make the mighty beach. And so everybody has an important role they can play. And one of the thoughts was, how can we save. Energy. Save water, save electricity. Very simply right within our own home and our daily activities. You know, when you're trying to get a glass. Like a quart of milk, you know something. So. And the other is, you know, I remember my great-grandson. When he was just in kindergarten. And I was brushing my teeth and he said, Turn off the faucet. Not to leave it running while you're brushing your teeth. You know. As so many little things you could do. You know, I think that if the park house could take on this as a goal to reduce their heat and electricity bill. So we could handle some of the other costs that keep coming up with an old building. That it would and get it to be sort of like a contest. You know, know what it is. And then go for a certain time and see what you say. You know, You know, get the kids to do it at home and school, you know, and then to see, you know, even if it's in the newspaper and published that so-and-so safe, so many dollars or so, you know, or we even have some prizes, but to know that there's something that everybody can do. No matter how small. That contribute to the great. World that we want to be able to continue in. The other thing when we're thinking of things, I'll just add this. Is that we have to think of the future. In many ways for one food. And getting enough food to feed population. Can become a serious problem. And we must not lose good agricultural land. Now for something to do quickly now. And then need it later and we don't have it. So agriculture, you know, our forests, our quality of soil, all of these things are very important to maintain and keep strong when we add on new things. But anyway, that's kind of a crazy ending to my little grain of sand with saving water electricity, you know, put the light out when you leave the room. Don't leave it going. It doesn't cost anymore to turn it on again. Thanks, Carolyn. I think I heard a few ideas in there, but really appreciate it. I think I skipped over Jeff to Jeff Gephard. I think you had something else to contribute. Well, given the discussion that. About solar. I think Jim's comment Marine and Diane's comment, I'm wondering if it's appropriate for GMP for Sarah. To share with us the concept of the resiliency zone. Thank you. If Sarah, do you just want to give a very quick synopsis of that? That's a good piece of context that it would be helpful for people to hear about. So. Yeah, sure. Sarah, do you want to, do you feel like you could do that quickly? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Great connection. So she's keeping her video off. Yeah, I hope you guys can hear me, but. Briefly, we've, you know, met with the town of Rochester, and we are interested in exploring a resiliency zone. Which is basically just a system designed to keep the lights on, keep things running during severe weather events, really significant outages. A great example of this is our project in Pantton. We've got a couple of micro grid controls. Which is going to be put online pretty soon. I'll keep it that short and just drop a few links in the chat for anyone who's interested to learn more. That's great. Thanks Sarah. Could be a really excellent opportunity for Rochester for sure. So thank you. Other ideas for. The Rochester region. James, go for it. This is kind of backing up that it came to my mind in terms of our assets. One of our greatest assets through this whole area. Is our high speed internet. And we have fiber to the home. And that's. Pretty rare. We've had it for what, two or three years now. In the valley. So we don't need to travel so much. If you're still working or participating. Yeah, that's important. I'm really glad you mentioned that. And increasingly there is a sensitivity to the importance. Of broadband connectivity. And energy opportunities because the grid is now much more of a dynamic thing. And for people to really participate in certain programs, you really need good internet connectivity. So that's, there are multiple layers to that as an asset. You're, you're spot on. Thank you for mentioning that. Who else has some ideas. Yeah, Chris. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This may not be very popular because of its cost. But Irene showed us that the substation location. In the floodplain in Rochester. It's not a great spot. And so something long-term to think about, especially for a green mountain power. Would be relocating the substation to higher ground. So that would be a good idea. Got it. Thanks, Chris. And you guys, don't worry about popularity or expense. This is a brainstorming session. You have no limitations at the moment. It'll be, you all will come back together to make some priority decisions about, about your work. So don't, don't self limit at this point. Diane, go for it. I'm not sure if this fits into this particular discussion, but it does. I think it's been on my mind for waste management. Because if you make waste, you have to do something with it, be it compost, be it plastic, be it cardboard. And looking at specifically the terra cycle options. Some of the terra cycle options are product specific, which means the manufacturer will pay. For you to send it back to them free of charge to recycle. So you can get a lot of things that are recycled. You can get a lot of things that are recycled. You can get a lot of things that are recycled. You can get a bunch of pens, for instance. If you collect a whole bunch of big pens, you get a label and you get the packaging materials. You send it back. It gets recycled things that are difficult to even recycle. Nowadays are Colgate. Toothpaste tubes. What do you do with a toothpaste to really? But Colgate through terra cycle has an option, you have to buy the box. You have to buy the packaging for free. You ship it back to them. They take care of the waste. Some of the terra cycle are definitely. You have to buy the box and ship it back depending on what the items are. And I would recommend that anyone that's interest, interested in waste management to look at the terra cycle options that are on their website. And I would also recommend that anyone that's interested in waste management to also involve the town in that. Can we set up the boxes somewhere where people can access them 24 seven. And can we also, I mean, Christine mentioned that costs whenever we discuss something that can be an issue and will be an issue on doing these things. Can we cost? Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good piece of the taxes that we pay into the town and label that section. Environmental tax for environmental projects that we want to do as a town, because I don't know that much about tax shifting. But that is a term that other cities, towns and countries are using to pay for some of these things. So I think that's a good point. Before we start thinking about how we can use the city, city, state or country want to do. Got it. Thanks, Diane. Couple of ideas there. And I'll just sort of restate them back to be sure I got them. Just thinking about waste and some creative ways to, to, to recycle. Or repurpose some of the more hard to recycle items. projects in town. You know, there's an example in my little town of Montpelier they they built a revolving loan fund specifically for energy conservation efforts in the municipality. So there are some other municipal examples of that. So thank you. Other ideas? Doom. So this is I guess an idea but this is more like a factor of what would help in coming into play is this the coordination and cooperation between the town structures and private individuals. So we've had over the years several movements towards trying to install solar on town property and we keep coming up against walls about either the structure is not substantial enough or we don't have an appropriate piece of land to put them on. I'm thinking of the Green Mountain Power Resiliency Zone project it seems that that's if we can open up the options of some private owned land to how something like that it would really might expand the likelihood of something coming to fruition. Great. Thanks Doom. Sue I see you're unmuted is that yeah go for it. Yeah John you mentioned at the outset that if you don't you know think your topic fits in with what exactly is written in the you know okay so I'm a musician. Have at it go for it. And an artist okay so the first thing I think of is we can certainly further the cause through art and music. I mean that would be my first thought I'm sure there's other ways but we have a very newly formed alliance in Rochester but we're inviting others in the valley to join us to find ways that we can cooperate and just add to the add to the value of of our towns through art and music. Yeah wonderful super thanks Sue. It's all interconnected and I say again and again nothing isn't a part of the climate conversation at this point there's no no out of balance so other ideas Christine go for it. Just to jump off of Sue and sort of thinking about the people and getting the people motivated and also jumping off of Carol and could we not sort of laud and uplift the folks that already have moved in the direction of solar in our valleys in the in the different towns and maybe write an article for the herald about them or honor them in some way at our at our town gatherings like the harvest fair or etc etc some way to just sort of shine light on those that are moving in this direction and to sort of move everybody in that direction to repositive reinforce that. Great I love it all right Mary Beth. I was just wanting to build on that idea and say maybe we could have a weekend where people who had either solar homes or electric cars or some sort of alternative structure or vehicle in their possession had an open house and anybody could come and see them and ask questions and hear about it. Great Diane. I'm not sure about the logistics of this or this would or if it would even be appropriate for town meeting day but if we're trying to get the community involved and to increase the participation of our communities perhaps I know that for town meeting day there's tables set out before we go into the auditorium and some of them are questionnaires but have a environmental questionnaire. Dear Rochester community member what would you like to see done in town regarding climate change and let's get the feeling of the whole community what they would like to see and perhaps get more buy-in if we get 500 responses on yeah we would like to see a better and more resilient electric grid in town for EV vehicles in the future or we would like to have learn more about solar to just get the temperature of everybody and I thought the only way we could really do that other than a mass mailing is maybe for town meeting day but again I don't know the logistics of that. Got it I think yeah got the idea don't don't worry about logistics the idea sort of pull the community as a whole really to gauge people's interest in various opportunities and then to build buy-in too which I think is an important point. I see Jeff Gephardt has a hand up and then I see James does so Jeff first. I was just going to mention that the Vermont Energy Atlas is a website that you can go on and you can actually see the locations in Rochester Grandville Hancock wherever in the state there is a grid connected solar installation or wind for that matter so that is something that can be seen and it's actually a fairly high percentage in Rochester. Thanks Jeff. Jim. Speaking of trying to to find out where you know what people think and whatever have you had any success with the poll that is out there now you know part of signing up for this and also directly you know give us your thoughts. We've had a couple of responses but honestly I haven't promoted it too much because I really wanted to promote tonight and now I'm going to shift to promoting the survey so yeah and any help you all can give to spread the word on that would be great. Well someone should check it out because you know I I filled it out about an hour ago and then when I finished and pressed in he says well thank you for participating in the the thoughts about the London area. Oh no we didn't correct that thank you all right that's good feedback I'll make sure that gets fixed you know hey we recycle at vcrd so yeah guilty is charged right that's good feedback thank you who else any other you know we're about to hand it off to our visiting team to provide a few closing reflexion but I want to so in other words the trains leave in the station who else has a few ideas before we do that it or does anybody Carolyn oh you're muted sorry Carolyn you know music is a real motivator in this valley and Sue saying that she's a musician yet and I know because I lived through the first second world war and the other sense and I know some of those rooting song they used to find people singing them all the time just to feel better about some things and why not compose a song or two and get so we get the kids singing it and everything you know and that's what will influence their parents and other people is make it something that this lifts our spirit not just a heavy chore to have to handle that oh so and so we'll do it they're always helping a lot but I just can't you know that's why I thought of doing little things that everybody can do that and no effort but see reward but how about cheering it on with some song so Christine you know so when the kids walking down the street they're singing and dancing the song about saving energy I like I have a friend who wrote one actually so maybe I'll share it with everybody later sounds great thanks Carolyn all right you know we my job is to mind the clock and we've got about seven minutes left before we go back to the main room and I want to give our visiting team a chance to just share a few sort of quick reflections as we bring things to a close and remember like if you've got other ideas that survey that we just mentioned is a great way to get that in and frankly you could just like be in touch with us like there's no you know we will be welcoming ideas for the next few weeks it's not like there's a hard stop there so with that I am going to let me just give you all the order for the visiting team so that you know what to expect I'm going to go to Becca White first and then we'll hear from Peter Gregory and then Alex and then Sarah so Becca you want to share a few thoughts as we wrap things up here sure thanks so much and again I'm from Efficiency Vermont and I actually live in White River Junction so if you look at my map I'm not too far from you and my two reflections I would take away from this conversation is first off that you have a lot of experts in the room this is a very there's some there's some real deep knowledge here on energy and I was very surprised and John you commented on too just the substation conversation that's um what a great group of folks who who um you've definitely done taken some time already to consider energy in your community so I think you've got some fertile soil um to be able to move on a lot of different projects and then the second reflection I had um was there's a lot of creativity when it comes to it sounded like and we kind of ended on it too um uh with Carolyn's point but trying to bring community into this conversation whether it's through music and art Sue you mentioned it um that's a really interesting angle and I I have the pleasure right now of being a part of the button up Vermont campaign which is our weatherization campaign that does grassroots outreach and that's one thing we really try to work on so I think that this group also has um a real opportunity to do either like an education or something campaign based on the feedback I'm hearing and I'm here from Efficiency Vermont to help you um on any of those topics to give guidance and expertise so I don't know is that what you're hoping for John that's great yes thank you and and you know I should have said in my opening remarks Efficiency Vermont along with green mount power really core partners in this work that we do and have a real orientation towards community and it's I just have to say it's it's hugely appreciated your willingness to come participate in these conversations yeah it's fun you guys are a good group I gotta go to was it Sandy's bookstore is that what's right and down to oh yeah I gotta tell you the bagels the holla I've been bringing home holla it's like it's everything fabulous all right Peter you um well like Becca said this is a great group wonderful ideas um uh it makes me excited to hear all the good things I think a couple of takeaways for me is the some of the assets you guys mentioned that you have um you know they're very they're expensive and wonderful assets to have a lot of the communities don't have like good internet and um you know good defined center um you know three phase power I mean you know those things that not everybody has they're very difficult to obtain in in the near term and some of the challenges you mentioned on the other hand are ones that I think a lot of communities have you know the the age of buildings to retrofit and those kinds of things that the transportation issues and those are issues that I think you'll be able to get some help on from state government and state programs and federal programs so you're not out of luck there so I think the challenges are you're not alone in that not that they're easy to solve but you're not alone and then the ideas I really love the lead by example I think this town is it's got the right mindset to to invest in itself and that's the best education one can have and you know the talking about writing articles and and celebrating the work that has been done and the investments that private citizens have made is just it builds on itself so a lot a lot of good things awesome thanks peter now on to sarah at green mountain power thank you all so much for having me I'm super impressed and gmp is really excited to be working with you for resiliency work but also just in general um I love hearing someone say that gmp is an asset that's what we like to hear and I really encourage you all to to please try to think of us um as an asset whenever possible you know I definitely have an elbow to answer any questions and our business team is also a great resource for any commercial cuts great thanks sarah and I think I went out of order but alex to close it off from preservation trust of vermont thank you you know I'm never let down by how invested vermonters are in helping their communities and rochester is definitely one of those towns um it seems like your main asset your main challenge and the main area for opportunity is your surroundings right your cultural and natural environment you want to work together to build your common infrastructure preserve that environment and your self-sufficiency I I think self-sufficiency is kind of one of those things I kept hearing about you know the the environment feeding the you know the woods and the surroundings and the you know energy around you in the downtown using that environment those cultural and natural resources for the common good I think was another kind of really key key message here as dunes said you know looking back into the past for how we have created energy and used it for the common good that's how vermonters and have been working for generations so again just thank you all for for being part of this and thank you for inviting ptv well thank you alex thank you to the visiting team and most important thank you to you all I think we're going to head back into the main room you can see that message there we'll all go back into the main room and then we'll shake things up and go back into some breakouts for the second hour here really appreciate everyone's participation thanks recording stopped carolin do you see um oh yep yeah just making sure everyone knows how to get out of here and then get back yeah everybody welcome back and I just got a message from the other room that they're going to run a couple of minutes well we got automatically sent back I feel we cut off some visiting team members and I'm so sorry about that I didn't realize we were automatically coming back oh sorry well we we could do an audible if I don't know if it's too awkward but we would be happy to listen to a couple of further reflections before we go on I think we have a minute or two so Jenna I'll follow your lead if that feels okay I told Josh and Dan that they are going to go first in the next one all right hi everybody welcome back I'm just going to bring things to a close and do it really quickly because I know we all have things to get on to here first of all huge appreciation to everybody I suspect you have other things that you might prefer to do on a Thursday evening a nice Thursday evening than be on a screen but what you're doing is you're showing a commitment to the place you live in and that's what our privilege is at the council on rural development is to be part of conversations where people come together and think about their future and think beyond their own home and family and think about their community and what they can contribute to their community and I will say this in the conversations I've had as we've started this process the thing I'm just struck with it's it's true across the state of Vermont it's really true in your valley you all have a deep shared commitment to the place that you live in you feel passionate about it and not only are you passionate about the place you live that is a really beautiful place you also are willing to roll up your sleeves and do work for that place and that is a powerful thing to be a witness to at the council on rural development. Our next step in this process as I've said is going to be November 1st our plan and intention is to do that in person where we'll gather we'll grapple with the ideas that you've come up with and you will decide on some priorities for this work moving forward and any help that you all can provide as we look ahead to that November 1st how do we broaden that conversation who's not in this room who should be a part of this conversation we will be a partner in spreading the word and doing that and so stay tuned as we give you sort of the tools to spread the word to all of the quintown region about these next steps tremendous appreciation to the partners our visiting team who took a couple hours out of their busy lives to be part of this conversation tonight and in particular to all of you for being engaged and involved really appreciate it and with that let's say good night and we will see you and I do see some questions about logistics we'll be in touch about that as we figure out the parameters of that event on on November 1st so thank you so much