 So we should go ahead and get started. Although I think Jesse's technique, no. He should be coming. He should be coming. I was trying to think who is next on the note taking list. Steve, I think it might be you. Steve, OK. Steve, are you good to take notes minutes today? Excuse me. Sorry, Steve, you're on mute, but I'm a student. Thumbs up. You're good? Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Sorry, I'm not. It's in minutes. I just gave you your mouth and moved either, so I wasn't sure. Great. Do I need to record everybody who's present? Or do you do that and add them to the minutes? Usually it's in the minutes. Someone records that. OK. I usually take notes anyway. So I'm going to have to be doing a roll call vote for the election of officers anyway. So either way, it doesn't matter. So I'm going to post the agenda large so everyone can see it. OK, great. So we've got Steve set up to take minutes this time, so the next agenda item is reviewing minutes from last time. Actually, why don't I just put up the minutes then? Let me know when you see them. Sorry, are you seeing them yet or not? Yes. OK, good. I'll just slow up a little bit. Am I wrong in thinking that Andrew Glaze didn't come to this last meeting? He came to the previous meeting? No, he was at the last meeting. He was. I thought it was too mean. I don't think so. I think it was this last one. And Andrew is actually with us again as an attendee. OK, great. Hey, Jesse. I'm sorry I'm late. All right, we are just going through the minutes. OK, anybody want to motion or have any comments? I move we accept the minutes. Pardon me. Second. Great. So Stephanie, are you going to do the roll call? For. Frager? Yes. Drucker? Yes. DeMont? Yes. Der? Yes. Ruth? Yes. Rose? Yes. Selman? Abstain. Thank you. Well said. Great. Public comment. Andrew, do you have anything you'd like to add? So let me see. I just have to get Andrew. I'm going to stop my screen share for a second. OK. Andrew, you can speak if you want to say anything. OK. I don't think Andrew would have anything. But you all have to unmute yourself. How's that? Can you hear me now? Yes, now we can hear you. OK. I have nothing to add. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Thanks for letting me sit in. OK. Great. So let's move on to nominations and vote for chair and co-chair. I have a question about the minutes. I was just looking to see if Oshwin's name is there. And he doesn't seem to be present or absent for last time. He took the minutes. Paul, yeah, he did take the minutes. And he's still sitting there. Very good. Is that a friendly amendment? Sure, this time, yeah. I'll just say I haven't. OK. Thanks, doesn't mean. Sure, no problem. OK. So for the elections, Laura, maybe it would be best if I sort of oversee this part, given that you're likely to either nominate yourself. So for the role of chair and vice-chair, we're in a new fiscal year, which means we're in new terms. And so you can either nominate yourself if you are so interested. Laura can express her interest in wanting to remain as chair. So I guess first, start with Laura. Are you interested in remaining as chair? Yes. OK. And then someone else can either nominate themselves or another UCAC member as in the role of chair. Do I hear any motions? Well, that makes it easy. OK. I was going to offer this caveat that the pandemic and everything, so if somebody else really wants it, we can figure that out. But I'm happy to keep doing what I've been doing. All right, I'm going to still make this official. So do I have a motion to have Drucker remain as chair? I move that Laura Drucker remain chair of the UCAC. OK. And do I have a second? I'll be happy to second that. OK. I'm going to have to do a roll call vote, even though we don't know what's unanimous, but Brecker? Yes. Drucker? Yes. Dumont? Yes. Der? Yes. Steve, I think you might be muted. Oh, sorry. Yes. Rose? Yes. And Selman? Yes, with gratitude. Thank you. It is astonishing the effort you put in. And I think it has served this group well. Thank you, Jesse. Thank you, everybody. Yeah, there wasn't really time to express gratitude. So that's great, Jesse. And I will also just thank Lauren not only for doing the job, but for doing the job really well. And especially in this first year getting going, really been appreciate. And we recognize how much more effort it is to chair this than just to be a member. I also appreciate that you're willing to continue, given you have a new job and kids at home because of the pandemic and all the pressure. So I'm sure your family's under. Yeah, thank you. And I appreciate on just stepping up and helping out, particularly in these last few months. And I will continue to do that to call on folks to help out. So thanks, everybody. We've got a good group. And so now we also have a vote for the vice chair. So, Andrea, do you want to continue in the role as vice chair? Yes, I am willing to serve. Should I be elected? OK. In that case, I will ask if there is anyone else who would like to nominate themselves or another committee member for vice chair. All right, great. We have our team. Once again, thank you so much, Andrea. And so I need to do a roll call vote. So, Gregor. Do we have a motion first? Sorry about that. I did say yes, but yes. Brocker. Yes, but I think Steve asked whether we needed to do a motion first. Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize. A motion. Can someone make the motion that Rose continue? I think nominations don't require a motion. Just nominate. It doesn't require a second. I'm going to say Darcy moved to reappoint Andrea as vice chair. And Steve, you're going to second, right? I'm not going to. We're going to do it anyway. OK, so I'll start again. Gregor. Yes. Brocker. Yes. Eamont. Yes. Der. Yes. Roof. Yes. Rose. Yes. Bellman. Yes, with gratitude as per our chair and coach. You're here for that. Great. Excellent. Yes, thank you both for all the work you've done and are continuing to do. All right. So, Laura, it's back to you. Great. So, back to me. OK, so a couple of things. First, I just wanted to say that there is a Medigrant, a state Medigrant that's Technical Assistance that's opening on August 20th. And I've reached out to the building facilities manager for the town. And I'm going to meet with him. And hopefully we will identify some projects to apply for that grant. I don't have anything right now to tell you beyond that. So that's just a quick update. The second thing is I wanted to let you know if you haven't seen it, everyone who is asking me. But I did send you a list of the RSVP responses. I broke them down by sector group, task group. So you did receive those as an email, as a sort of late packet item. And those are the responses that are affirmative. So the process was that I sent out the Zoom invitation, assuming people were coming. Then the people that responded, I gave them till last Friday. And then I followed up yesterday with those that didn't respond. And I sent another email saying that I didn't receive your response. We would love to have you, basically. I invited them to participate once again. And that did actually yield a few more. I think I got at least four to five, maybe six more responses back. So that did actually yield more results. So at this point, tomorrow, what I'll do is I will give you the names of the people that did not respond either. There are also people who are on vacation. So I'll let you know the responses that just bounced back because people are on vacation and so they're not available. Those who said no because they're unavailable. And then the people that you can follow up with. So I'll do that tomorrow. I also had to, in setting up the Zoom meetings, I had to set up the panelists. And I had to do all that because I had to make sure that all the meetings got posted. So I was really anxious to just get that done. So I know some of you asked me a little bit earlier about the responses, but I had to get that done first. So all the meetings are posted. All the Zoom links went out. Now you have the RSVPs. So I think we're in pretty decent shape as far as that goes. And it looks like we consistently almost have a pretty similar set of numbers for each group at this point. So oh, and I'm sorry, one other thing. I did speak to the town manager the other day. I know that we wanted to potentially have some outdoor sessions for these task group meetings. And he didn't absolutely say no, but he really pointed out that it's really a challenge because of the separation that we have to have when we're doing these meetings, even outdoors. It's really hard for people to hear. I have to say from my own personal experience recently, when I was in a store talking to a clerk because I had a mask on, they were talking to me. And I absolutely couldn't hear what they were saying. It's really hard with a mask on, especially for some older folks. I'm going to include myself in that category now. That just couldn't, I just couldn't hear anything. So it can be really frustrating. And that means we'd have to have a sound system as well to set up those meetings. So I think given that, even though it's less intimate, he really guided us to really just stick with a virtual format for these meetings. So I just wanted to put that out there. And even though I know the building's committee had had one scheduled for their first, we had to change that because we did need to secure an ASL interpreter for one of our community members. And so in order to do that, we had to switch the schedule to accommodate. So that moved the meeting to evening hours, which unfortunately, again, lend themselves to being in a virtual format. So I just wanted to get that update. So that's all I have, Laura. Thanks, Stephanie. Does anybody have any questions for Stephanie? I'll just comment that I'm actually going to need to leave the meeting and apologize for that because my family's calling me and I'm on vacation. So I got to do that. So good luck with the rest of the meeting. Sorry to miss it. I was going to chat that, but I don't see a chat. Maybe that's a... Oh, we don't have a chat on this. We don't have a chat with this. OK, all right. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Thanks for joining us. I also need to mention that my family is having dinner at 6.30 not here. So I will be in transit at the end, not paying much attention. OK, thanks, Stephanie. So next up, we think we have ECAC member updates. Darcy, you have a few things? Yeah. Yeah. Am I on mute? No. One is if you read the minutes, it's noted that I was supposed to talk to the council president about our making a presentation. And we did get set up with one for August 3rd, which is next Monday. And Laura and Stephanie are going to do it. And because of that, I brought up the fact that our timeline that we had initially presented to us could be updated. And so I wondered if we there are just a few little notations that I asked for updates on the timeline. And they're basically related to the difference between the MVP process and the ECAC process. And anything related to the budget is really just us. It's just ECAC. It's not any requirement within the MVP process. So we kind of straighten that out. And does it make sense to pull it up so that people can see it? Because that is. Yeah. I have it open, Stephanie. Or yeah, let's see. Oh, I just highlighted in yellow. There are a few things at the end of the process in March, April, May, June, one of which was that for us to comply with the budget requirements in the town, the budget has to be submitted by May 1st. So we just need to, if we have something related to the budget, it has to be the final version has to be submitted well in advance of May 1st. So that seemed like we needed to finish our process before May 1st. Also, this is all according to dates. And so I hope you see number seven here. That's the time when the initial town budget gets submitted and it's right after we're supposed to be prioritizing actions. And so to the extent possible, if we can get any budget requests in that it seems like we're able to get together by that time, that would be number seven. And then also in March would be the kind of discussion and affirmation of the draft AARP. And then in April, then present it to the public, then finalize it. I'm suggesting April so that it will be done by that May 1st deadline, which just shortens the timeline by about a month. So I just wanted to discuss that with the consultants and with Laura and Stephanie. And that seemed to be something everybody was fine with. So I just wanted to make sure that the committee also saw it. Great. Stephanie or Jim or Lauren, do you folks have any comments? I have a couple of quick comments. So first, Darcy, this is great. Thank you for thinking this all through. And it's super valuable. We've been so focused on the front end of this process that somebody out thinking about the tail end of the process is very valuable to help line up when activities need to happen. From our perspective, this sounds great. The initial timeline had some space in it. Space is always nice, but hey, we actually are trying to do something here. And so from our perspective, yeah, this is great. And what will probably happen here is it will work with Stephanie to kind of reformulate some of the tail end schedule into something a little more solid that fits this, so that then we're all comfortable with how that goes. And from my perspective, I'll just say we did build in a little bit of padding in this anyway. So I don't foresee this as a big problem. Like Jim said, we'll just adjust. OK. And the budget request would be presumably in coordination with our annual report that we said we were going to do toward the end of the year. That's all. As long as we're all good with that, I just wanted to make sure people saw it. And because Stephanie and Laura are going to be reporting, I don't know if you're incorporating this in your presentation, but if we're talking to the council about a timeline, we just wanted to make sure we had the timeline that included the ECAC and the MVP headlines and timeline. And the council, for that matter, yes. Right, right. Great. I don't see any other questions. Oh, Steve, yeah. I have a new update if we're done with what Darcy was talking about. Yeah, the only thing I wanted to finish up with Darcy is just in terms of presenting on Monday, my intention would be just to remind us back to that conversation when we decided to do it. It was just to make sure we're still staying in the face of the council, know that we're doing work. So I will probably defer to Stephanie to talk about the specifics of the MVP process and then just fill in how ECAC has been involved with the task group co-chairs and the work that we're doing with the community leaders and the goal of coming back to them in the November, December timeframe with an annual report and a budget request. Anything missing? No, that's perfect. OK, great. And then Darcy, did you have one more thing to say, or is it OK to move to Steve? I do have another, but I would be glad to alternate. Go ahead, Steve. OK, I'm going to give an update from the Rocky Mountain Institute, the electrification program that I've been participating in along with Andra and Stephanie and some other folks in town. Turns out the attorney general just recently ruled that those bylaws that Arlington and Brookline passed are in conflict with state law. The attorney general ruled that the town bylaws cannot regulate fossil fuel infrastructure because that's the explicit role of statewide building codes and other regulations. So it seems to be a kind of a fatal blow to the program, but the RMI team and lawyers are analyzing it to see what possible ways can go forward, at least in terms of other communities trying to craft bylaws. We're not dead in the water because we are going to be talking, our team meeting with the Amherst people and our team helper is tomorrow afternoon. We are going to talk about other ways that we could further those same goals, the electrification and reduction of fossil fuel use in other ways without passing a bylaw. So incentives or education programs or whatnot, that's hard. That's where we'll be looking rather than putting effort into trying to create a bylaw. Unless there are wizards to figure out a way that we might be able to design a new bylaw, we'll see. But that's the status at the moment. And Andra or Stephanie can add anything to that if they wish. That's interesting, I guess, the right word. I don't know a lot of the history, but I know that the people who crafted these bylaws were well aware of the fact that local bylaws can't conflict with state building code. And they must have had some strategy or some hope that their bylaws would pass muster. But they didn't. Steve, did you know if it was looked at to make the process cumbersome in a positive way, for example, requiring extensive carbon accounting for these projects just to make it harder, but not actually to regulate? Do you know if that was one of the strategies? I don't think so. I understand of the bylaws. They were strictly about in the building permit process of not allowing new gas, fossil fuel, gas, or fuel oil. It was very simple in that way. No carbon counting, just new buildings, no gas, except there were a ton of exceptions. Yeah, exception. I should add that the Attorney General did state that they agreed with the policy. And they thought it was great policy, but they cannot decide the issue on policy. They have to decide it on existing law and previous cases. So the Attorney General was sort of sad. It seemed sad to have to rule that way and thought it was great policy, but the only fix was that the legislature either take up such a requirement or something else. There are other policies. It doesn't have to be exactly what Jacqueline did. So the accelerator is going on. We'll explore other possibilities. I have to say there were different interpretations of the AGs really. Somebody else sort of didn't think it was a, they didn't necessarily see it as the death knell for the bylaw. So I think it was just a matter of interpretation. And I think there were some folks who definitely were, again, the group is still going to continue on and investigate how to sort of work around that. Well, good. We hope then to be able to report in our future meetings that we have some fabulous solution and some great ideas to continue that effort. Thanks, Steve. Darcy, did you want to? Yeah. I, in your packet, you, I asked to include the town manager self-evaluation and the goals for FY20. And if we could pull those up, that would be really good. We're doing, the town council is currently doing two things. We're finishing up the FY20 evaluation based on those goals. And at the same time, we're putting together the goals for FY21. And I'm using the team that put together the FY20 goals. And I'm not on the team. It got switched to one of the actual standing committees of the council to put together the goals for FY21. And as we always do as a council, if it's in front of a different group of people, it has to be completely revamped. So I went to the GOL committee meeting this morning. And I'm going to talk to you about whether we want to make a recommendation about the goals for the upcoming fiscal year. But anyway, if you go to page, I think it's at the end, 14 through 16. These done right here. Yeah, so if you go down to number two, that's climate action. So these were our goals for this. We actually made them in January. And they were just for the six months until the end of this fiscal year that we're in. So they were pretty limited because of the knowledge that we wouldn't be able to do much in six months. But we did get a whole subsection of the goals, which was climate action using a lens of climate action to prioritize and begin to implement our action. And so I went to the GOL committee meeting this morning. They are the group that are going to do the FY21 goals. And there was a lot of I went because I would like to influence the goals for FY21, even though I'm not on that committee. And because I thought it would be good to propose that they look for a recommendation from this committee for the FY21 goals. Well, the problem is that they have to decide very quickly. And they're going to have a meeting next Wednesday too. And they're coming up with like a draft proposal, which they did. There was a lot of there is a lot of discussion today along the lines of what we can reasonably expect in the next year because of COVID-19. And do we need to reevaluate what's important to the town? And that kind of talk. So my antenna immediately went up. And I'm just I'm thinking should we propose something? Should we assign someone to look at what we might want to have for our goals for the next fiscal year before next Wednesday to get to them? And I'm just thinking that we would base it on our charge and base it on our goals document, our timeline. And we don't have time set aside in this meeting to go deeply into this. So I'm just seeking guidance from the rest of the committee as to what we should do. If we don't do something, then I'll probably do something on my own just as an individual counselor. Ending in my recommendations. But obviously, it would have more effect if it were from this committee. But again, we don't have it in front of us. So it would have to be something that was pulled together in the next week. Thoughts? Did I totally confuse you? I think it makes sense. And I think that it would be a shame to go from having them in there to not having anything about climate action in the goals. So I do think it's worthwhile to even, at a minimum, express, assuming the rest of the committee agrees, express our interest in keeping climate action as a focus area. And we've talked about a couple of things in our meetings that could be easy and fairly achievable sub-goals here. Like one of the things we've talked about in the past is ensuring that when relevant climate action and sustainability is included in job descriptions for replacement hires, for example, that could be something easy to put in here as a goal, I think. I think the budget, we could even simplify it into one goal around budget, ensuring that the budget, capital budget is assessed with operational costs and energy efficiency in mind, or in the climate goals in mind, or something like that. So we could simplify the list a little bit, but I think we could keep it. What do other folks think? Another comment that was made at the meeting was that the finance committee guidelines and need to jive with our goals. So one comment we could conceivably make is that the finance guidelines follow the town's goals rather than the opposite. That's a tough one. Will you say that again, Darcy? One of the comments that was made at the meeting this morning was that sometimes the town goals do not jive with the finance committee guidelines and the budget. And so the suggestion was made that they need to correlate. And so my suggestion is that the finance committee guidelines need to follow whatever goals the town council makes rather than vice versa. So in other words, if we make, and there is a problem there because the town manager has the power over the town budget and the town council has power over town policy, so you figure that one out. So we don't need to solve that here. I'm just saying that we could make a comment about it that we would hope that the budget reflects the climate priorities or something along those lines. Maybe similar, not quite as loaded. It would be D, where it says gather climate action plans that could begin to implement forthcoming climate action plan. And the suggestions we made in the budget for last year, I assume we would just carry them over. Well, hopefully we would have, yeah, and hopefully we'll have even more insight from the plan. Right. It is tricky because we have a whole year, a whole other year of climate action planning as opposed to implementation. But so that's sort of the question is what can we ask to be done before the plan is finalized? If I could, it's likely that during the draft of the climate action plan there are going to be items that will naturally sort of come to the forefront, that will be identified as being the first to be implemented. And I don't think you need to wait for the climate action plan to be complete before you identify those things. So it's likely that you'll have some idea before that deadline comes. So yeah, it's just a question of how we're going to ask the town manager to take the lead in implementing things that aren't yet part of a formalized climate action plan. Yeah, so we could work on the wordsmithing, but I think in how we put that in here as a smart goal, or if that's the intention. But it seems like folks are, so the three that have come up are like the job descriptions that could fit under the educate staff as well. We could keep that one in there. The climate plan and forthcoming climate plan and the budget. And then any other suggestions or thoughts? Anybody want to take the lead in wordsmithing an email? I can do that. OK, great. Thanks, Darcy. And this would go to the JOL, right? To you. The committee. OK. So yeah, I can just send a draft to you, Laura. That's fine. And then we'll put it in the packet for next time. Yeah, it has to actually be submitted by Wednesday, so. Yeah, I mean, just so everyone else can see it. Yeah, so I guess we'll assume that everybody's OK with her doing that. You have my full support, both of you. Thank you for taking this on, seriously. Keep it simple. And Darcy, if you could just include me in that correspondence with Laura. No, I didn't. Laura and Stephanie, yes. Thank you. OK, great. Thanks, Darcy, for raising this. Any other ECAC member updates? OK, great. So let's move on to. So we have two more main agenda items here. One is sort of identification of next steps for task group co-chairs, maybe get a little update on what's been going on. We heard from Stephanie around the planning, but Jim and Lauren may be talking about it and Ghazikaya from your perspective. And then, Andra, you had brought up a good point last time that we should also think about what we can be doing as ECAC as the task group work is ongoing. If there's other things that we could be working on, that would complement the task group work. And I sort of pitched that back out to Jim to give his thoughts as sort of what he thinks might be complementary. And then we can kind of go from there with that conversation. So if you want to start with the task group updates and co-chair, next steps. Sounds great. I'll jump in here and everybody can jump in as you see fit. So two big things have happened since the last committee meeting. One was that each task group facilitator group, we're going to be swimming in names of these things soon. So each task group facilitator group got a chance to meet, had great conversations. They were fantastic conversations. And went through a process of diving into what the task group should be doing and then trying to devise a framework for agendas. So each of the task groups did that. There are notes that have been back to each task group out of that. Task groups are still sort of looking at those notes. So those will all be shared together with the whole committee once everybody decides they're OK. And we make any changes. Out of that process, Lauren and Gazikaya and myself spent quite a bit of time sort of looking at those agendas, those draft agendas, and revising them based on a couple of key sort of inputs. I think that's a better way to describe it. I'm trying to use fancy words. I'm trying to keep it down here. Some ideas that came from some people. One was Laura's thought about looking at the agendas and was like, whoa, there's a lot of stuff in here. We really need to tone it down, which we were also feeling. And even though they're great and loaded with lots of really good stuff. And the other was the realization that we were going to have to think a little bit about how interpretation worked within the structure of a couple of the task group committees, task group meetings. And so we probably needed to tone it down a little so that things could have a more stately pace and that conversations could develop a little deeper. So in that process, we put together a sort of revised version. So myself and Lauren and Kazikaya put together a revised version of those agendas for each of the task groups and sort of working with the notes, those facilitator notes that everybody has gotten to really try and pull out the essence of what's going on in those notes and what people were thinking about. Have we sent those back to the co-facilitator teams? Though, as you note, I got it wrong on a couple of them. Thank you for your patience. And thank you, Stephanie and Lauren, for noticing. And so now we just had a gathering. Jesse and Sarah and Lauren and Kazikaya and myself had a quick conversation before this meeting, which was following up on that revised agenda. How do we want to work it? How did it feel? And then trying to develop what was necessary, and I would like to hand big kudos to Jesse and Sarah for really putting some thought into this process, put into understanding what their part was going to be and then what the whole flow was going to be. So that was really super useful. I hope it was useful for you. And so we need to probably do that with everybody just so that everybody understands what is being asked of them. They're comfortable with it. They like the flow of the meetings and are comfortable with where they're going and what we get out of them. The goal to get for these meetings is really to get a set sort of at the high level to get at least the beginning of a set of principles about how decisions on strategies and actions and goals get made in the plan. And so the task groups really are about at this point making those decisions and it being a joint process so that we can take it to the next meeting, the second meeting, and really start to look at what kinds of actions get prioritized and why and how they fit those principles so that we can then potentially take it to the third meeting and start to talk a little bit about how some of these things might happen, although we'll see. So next steps, wait, before I jump to next steps, anybody, Lauren, Kazikai, any thoughts or anybody else want to say anything in there? I'll follow after you. OK. I'm good. Great. So next steps to probably talk with each of the facilitation teams, the co-chairs, I've always got so many names, each of you. And just make sure we've got everything lined up that you feel comfortable with what you need to say and that it all feels like a good flow and we're ready to jump into those meetings. Just seeing the responses of the RSVPs, I'm actually kind of excited the RSVPs look great. I know we probably like some more folks, but darn, we did pretty well so far. And so we'll have a chance once those meetings happen. We'll probably want to do in those meetings try and schedule the next one, classic meeting stuff, and then do the same kind of process to plan for the next meeting as well. I'm going to stop, Lauren. And we can talk about other activities for the committee. Yeah, I just wanted to make a couple of notes about developing the stories that each of the co-chairs are putting together and about generally just the prepared parts of these meetings to, if possible, have those written out in advance and made available to our interpreters for those groups where we have interpretation because it will facilitate the interpretation process for the interpreters. So that is the buildings group. We'll have an ASL interpreter and the land use group will have Spanish interpretation. The other two groups, as I understand it, because you got it correct me if I'm wrong, don't currently have interpretation. So that was just that note I wanted to make. You're correct. Sorry, I was chewing and eating, so I have my video. Oh, no, no, no, no. Thank you. And then I also saw that under-asked a question earlier about in an email about whether or not we'll be using slides, and I thought that that might be a good thing with the group. Right, so in general, we're not expecting slides. And there was a, Kazika had made a comment in one of the settings about with ASL interpreter going back and forth between slides and not slides. Our general thought is that probably we don't really need slides unless there's something you really think is visual would be great to get across visually, in which he is happy to help you work on slides. And in that case, we would also probably want those delivered to the interpreters in advance if possible. If that's one of the interpreter groups, yeah. Yeah. Well, that would make it easy for the renewables and energy, because I think we really need slides to explain CCA, and we don't have heard interpretations. Right, yeah, great. And we're happy to help sort of, in general, and I think we sort of said this last time, but I'm going to say it again, because now it's much more in front of everybody's mind. We're happy to help put stuff together. If you want to think about what it is and get it all set, great. If you think about what it is and you get it half set, happy to follow through and help you to bring it to something that really looks cool and is expressive. Any questions before we get on from this? It's kind of a lot of stuff. I think I do have one question. We guess two questions. So should if the co-chairs need to, so like if Darcy and I need to communicate about how we do the introduction, for example, is that a meeting we should set up with everybody or should we just talk about it over email or either way it works? Yeah, I just, let me just, because these are not deliberations, they can be, you can actually talk to each other. So Jesse and Sarah, I don't know, Jesse, one of you can sort of talk about how you did this, but had a conversation together, shared a couple of things. And then we had a conversation to help think it through. And then there's probably a little bit more that goes on after that. So all of those, you want to use Google Doc, you want to share emails, whatever. Happy to do that in any way that works for you. I highly recommend a porch in the evening with a cocktail. But however you guys want to do it. OK, that sounds good. Great. And then the other question is probably for Gazekaya around, I know that there are, looking at the task group list, there's certainly some community leaders that have RCPed, which is wonderful. I know there are also a few community leaders who maybe don't want to join our full meetings for a host of reasons. So is that information able to be shared with the different task groups for which they may have community leaders that aren't joining the big group? And then how's the best way to work with you to facilitate one-on-one meetings for those community leaders? Yeah, great question. So far, everybody wants to come to the task group meetings, which is a huge success. There's been lots and lots and lots of conversations. There is one person that I think is slightly on the fence. And if that arises, I will put them in touch with a committee member if that's what they feel comfortable with. And otherwise, I'll just work with them one-on-one and then sort of be intermediary. One thing that has come up from almost all of the community leaders is that they have lots to share about every topic, not just the group that they've been placed in. So I would like for us to think about how to specifically provide opportunities for individuals to provide feedback or have an ability to talk on the different topics that the groups they're not in. So whoever has ideas around that, I think that would be really good because everyone's really excited and motivated to share and feeling like the feedback I've gotten is that this is the most they've ever been consulted and they are just brimming with ideas and input. So that's great. And even one person is considering running for town council and looking into that. So this is a big deal. And I just want to acknowledge that this is something significantly different for our town. And I appreciate you all's openness. Thanks, Kathy Kaya. That's making me tear up a little bit that they're interested in running for town council. Not that we did anything great, but that's exciting. So OK, yeah, let's talk about that. Maybe we could have one-off meetings for the different, I'm just thinking out loud, for the different areas where anybody from any of the community leaders could join just to give insight or something. But we can think about that maybe after the first meeting. Something that's come up in our facilitation group meetings was around that there are likely going to be offshoots of interest of different folks who are going to want to go deeper. Maybe a farmer's group who's going to want to talk about that carbon sequestration or a group of residents who are going to want to talk about tenants rights. So I think that hopefully after this first meeting, you'll get another chance to hear from everyone who's coming to the group and seeing where people's interests lie. And if separate self-organized groups in the community can be a result of this work, I think that would be awesome. Stephanie? I just had a thought that maybe we're going to be coming from the task group meetings and there'll be a draft document put together at some point. And the idea was that the draft document is going to be opened up to the community. At some point, we'll be having another full session. And maybe that's where all the information is. Maybe that's a point where it can be one big meeting with everybody. I think we should keep my suggestion. My suggestion is that we keep a kind of a flexible view on this. And let's see what turns out to be need to happen. But there may be times when we want to have people participating in more things. It may be that there's a structure done that happens. It makes it easier. I don't have a big feeling right now for what's the best route to really encourage activity. But I know this is one of those principal things, right? It's like, don't know how to do it, but I know that we want to do that. And so go ahead, Dizzy Ken. One of the pieces that is going to be helpful, I hope, is that I'll be at everybody's meetings. So I'll be sitting in one group and might think, oh, you know what? So-and-so is going to have an opinion on this. And so I can then, after that meeting, connect with that person and ask them if they want to, you know, in which way would they like to communicate their opinion. And I'll also be able to be sitting in a meeting and say, hey, I know this thing is really important to you. And that's something that's really being talked about in this other group. So let's connect on how we can make sure your information gets to that group. So that we can also encourage people sharing while not letting our groups get off on topics that we're not going to be able to address. And that's, you know, we'll have to see how that flows. But I think there will be a lot of that, especially from community leaders who just sort of see life as all one topic. And, you know, I want to make sure that we don't say to people, oh, that's not our group. So don't talk about it. But that we find ways to really say, like, oh, that is so important. And I see the connections that you made, and I'm going to really support you in making sure that the other group gets that information too. So we'll have to sort of see how that flows. But that's what I see my main role in these groups as being is making all those connections and thinking of the input that we can get sort of across the board. And I think that's going to be true for some of the other what we're calling the stakeholder leaders or sector leaders. I think that's just going to be true in general, because I know that there are other people who are in specific groups. And I was thinking of that today as I was putting together the lists and responding to folks that there are definitely people that definitely have crossover in different areas. So I can sort of look at the broad, you know, if you're focused on community leaders, I'll be focused on everybody else. So we can just make sure that that happens. Fantastic. And that actually brings up a point about sort of one piece of work for the committee to be doing in parallel to the task group process. And that is there's probably some holding and gathering of sort of things that crossover boundaries. It would be really valuable to be sort of an active process for committee members as the committee to take on. I'm not sure quite what that looks like, but I think that could be valuable. Jeff, did you have something? Oh, I think you're muted. No, you're good. Can we, yeah, Darcy, go ahead. I'm a little bit confused by whether the public is going to be invited to the initial task force meetings. They're gonna have to be posted as public meetings, right? So how will that work? Are you talking about the first group, the meetings that are happening this week and next week? Yeah. They're already posted. I've posted them all. So the public is attending as, are they webinars? So the public is attending as attendees? Correct, they're webinars. And I know that we've had this ongoing discussion about all kinds of participation and things, but the town is pretty firm and adamant on doing webinars. The sort of, you know, the webinars are a safer format, especially when you front-load all the panelists, which I did this time. And it's sort of a, we either get more safety and security with the webinar format, or if you're looking for a more public involved process where people are seen, then it's less safe. And then we open ourselves up to the potential for bombing. And the two instances where we kind of did that, that's what happened. We weren't following the very strict format. I'm just wondering who can attend one way or another. And if we want to attend all of them, are we, like, if I want to go to the ones that aren't mine, am I an attendee for a participant? I would think you'd be an attendee because the committee's part of the thought is that the task groups have some integrity and that integrity lives on over time. And there's not, we don't have public comment in the agenda, as I believe. That's what I was going to say, that at this point they don't have a public comment period. So yeah, you have to attend as an attendee, which could be quite interesting, I would think. And obviously you can send, people who attend as attendees can participate, can provide material to the task group through email or in other phone calls and things like that. Somebody refresh our memories real quick about exactly what each one of them is. I can do that. I have them lying here. I have them all written down. Land use is on the 30th tomorrow from six to 8 p.m. The renewables task group is on Monday, the third at 5.30 to 7.30. Buildings is on Wednesday, the fifth from six to 8 p.m. And transportation is next Thursday, the sixth from two to 4 p.m. And they're all in the town's calendar. They're all posted. So you'll be able to see them there. And I do want to just make a quick note that the land use group, their agenda may be a little off from what's posted. I don't think it's a big deal just because I didn't necessarily have the revised version. So that one is just not completely in sync with what was revised. But it's pretty general. Stephanie, could you repeat the date and the time for the last one, the transportation meeting? Sure. Transportation is Thursday, 8, 6, which is next Thursday from two to 4 p.m. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. So that's helpful. And it's great that we're all gonna have our first meetings before our next ECAC meeting because then I think we can spend a lot of time debriefing but also sort of having this running thought around this idea of offshoots or other ways that we're sort of collectively addressing issues that maybe hearing from folks that wanna talk about different things or addressing issues that aren't clearly delineated in our different groups, but that are coming up. So I think that will be great. That's sort of my one big thought about things that need to be happening. This committee is amazingly active and fantastic. And do you have your hands full right now? But if you want more, I think that the activities for the committee will start to come bubble up out of these task groups, things that as you say are not really gonna be within the purview of the task group, but definitely are at a higher level and within the purview of the public committee. I would like to note, unfortunately, that I am going to have to leave this meeting in about five minutes. Lauren and Kizikaya will do a fabulous job, I'm sure. So that I can go run another Zoom webinar. Does anybody have any questions, maybe specifically about the task group meetings coming up for the next two weeks? And then we can maybe do a little more talking around ECAC and other things we wanna be focused on or tracking. I just quickly wanted to say, Laura, that I'm actually gonna be on vacation for the next ECAC meeting. So any packet information, I absolutely will have to have by next Friday. Okay, good to know. And also I will have someone from IT hosting the meeting. I mean, you can be co-host, but they'll be generally handling the IT piece. Perfect. So I don't know, I guess the only group for which, well, maybe the group on the transportation group was on the sixth and then the group that was on the fifth and maybe a tight turnaround to get notes from those meetings to you for the packet, but we'll do the best we can. Great. So very excited for these first meetings. So do we wanna talk about sort of as ECAC, I think we have a couple, of course the electrification group work going on with Steve and Andra and Stephanie, the CCA work that's going on with Andra, Stephanie, Dwayne and Darcy, I don't know if you're involved with that still or not. Is there anything else that folks feel like we should be have our pulse on or otherwise things that the group wants to make sure we're talking about sort of in parallel to this process with the caveat that this process is very time consuming. So I don't think that we necessarily have to be doing anything else either. You know, I think the kind of more, the newish I would say agenda approach of having like the ECAC member updates, I think has worked well for people to bring things up that are kind of front of mind or things we wanna talk about. But just wanted to open it up for any thoughts. Andra, this was sort of your, I know you may be running out as we speak, but I know this was something you had mentioned last time. So I don't know if you had any additional thoughts. Yeah, Jesse. I have two things, neither of which are necessarily work for people, but maybe just seeds to plant in people's heads. One is, and I've talked about this in our task group a little bit, is a little bit about just the notion of the branding or essence of the work we're doing. And I just encourage people to think about that and give feedback to Linnean about how this work portrays itself to the town, in particular, and how it may be consistent and digestible and enjoyable and beautiful and exciting. So that's one sort of back of the head thing. And I don't know if branding is the right word. I don't, I'm gonna keep saying it though because I think it is the right word. I think it's just like how, like the visuals and things. I think it's important. I think it's worth considering. That's one. And then the other is, this is something Sarah brought up when we were talking about our task group is just this kind of COVID acknowledgement and to know that what we will be proposing is gonna be, we're gonna be proposing this into a different world than the world that we started working in. And I think there are already starting to emerge a lot of really great lessons and some not so great lessons. And I think for us all to have that in our heads to respect the sort of the new financial stresses that people may be under, but also the new comfort level other people may be under with traveling less or driving less. And I think, and I think this really relates strongly to the resilience piece, to the, you know, the food shortages, the panic buying, all these things like does Amherst have a local business that's making carbon sequestration net zero masks? I don't know, not yet, but that could be a great thing in our town. So those are just two pieces that I think, I think they're big, they're big for me as far as acknowledging at least. Nessie, can I respond to that? To both of your points, actually. So on the notion of branding and the essence of what this plan is going to convey, what this work is about, absolutely, please feel free to send your thoughts and ideas our way. You can just send them to me anytime. And then around the COVID acknowledgement piece, I think that's such an important thing to be keeping in mind as we do this work. I think one of the, I want you to write down everything that you just said, because one of the things that I've been thinking about in terms of sort of being an outsider, witnessing this process that the committee is leading and going through is how cool it would be to have the committee's reflections on that process be part of what comes out. Because I think this is a really unique process and to the extent that it can be held up as a case study and a model for others. Would be really awesome. I think it's something we've all talked about in different contexts. And so I would just encourage you as committee members, kind of what Jesse was just doing, like reflecting on what this process means in the context of COVID and how it has been impacted by that and what it's made possible, what it's made more difficult. All of those things I think are just great reflections to have and hopefully towards the end of this process, we can revisit the conversation and maybe have that, those reflections be incorporated into the plan. Because I think you're absolutely right, Jesse. It's a totally different world than when we started this process and it would be silly not to acknowledge that. So I just wanted to put that out there and thank you for your time. So I just wanted to put that out there and thank you for raising both of those points. Laurie muted. Yeah, Stephanie and Darcy, sorry. I just did want to, instead of talking about the difference in the world we were in and the world we're in now, also I think, and I know Jesse, you touched on it a little bit about how there are some great and not so great lessons, but I would also want to really point out the ways in which this is really, really different for people and how they're experiencing it because I know lately, I've just seen all these Facebook postings and there are people talking about how it's so great that we get to relax a little bit. My life has slowed down and it's so much better. And then I'm thinking there are people who have lost their jobs. I feel like there are some, for some people it's this great thing and on some level, and for other people it's absolutely devastating. And I just think that there are probably a good number of folks in our community that are having a really hard time. So how are we gonna reflect that in what we're doing as well? Yeah, I think that's the most important piece to me. The work we set out to do oftentimes comes into this wall of, well, we can't afford that. And I think that wall is being fortified in some ways by this, the financial situation and the uncertainty of work and labor and jobs. It's the, in some ways it's an, it's already a big ask to have people think about something that is oftentimes theoretical and to throw that on top of all this stress I think is, it's an acknowledgement. It's a tricky one. I don't know the answer myself. I credit Sarah for kind of bringing it to my attention as something we need to really pay attention to. Yeah, Darcy. I think, I hope that Amherst is ready to think about just new ways of looking at the problem just like we're kind of hoping that Amherst is ready to look at racial equity in a different way. That I would hope that this would start a conversation about looking at prioritizing climate action in a different way. I feel kind of like we're at a disadvantage because of the timing compared to places like Concord that sort of just got their baseline climate action plan done sort of under the line. So, I feel like I'd like to see what that baseline plan would be and then what the considerations would change about it. I mean, it's unfortunate that we don't, we may not have that ever to compare against. I know Lauren, you had a question or a point. I also wanted to maybe, Andra, put a spot on you since you spoke in the beginning about your involvement with the legislative process and lots of bills are up and being discussed. What is the, I mean, I know from my experience in the NGO community, you know, build back better like trying to use this as an opportunity and a moment. And I don't think that's all for naught. I think some of that is real. So I'd be interested in knowing how you are seeing that play out. So, I mean, that is happening in Massachusetts. The house just passed an economic development bill that had a lot of green recovery and environmental justice in it. And they passed a number of amendments that strengthened those aspects, not everything we wanted, but, you know, the activists were pushing for, but a lot. So, and then the one that's up right now is a pure climate bill and it's starting the reconciliation process between the Senate and the house and it'll be voted on tomorrow. So, in terms of specific ones that are really relevant to us, our senators sponsored the net zero stretch code bill in the Senate and the same one is being proposed in the house as an amendment to this bill. So, there's definitely opportunities to get involved. I imagine that next session will also be wanting to get involved in some legislation that might come out of this RMI process to allow more municipal choices. Did I answer that question at all? Yeah, I know that was helpful. And maybe potentially at the next meeting or a future meeting, we could go over once the dust settles on the current session, getting data on where the state landed might be helpful for the group. Okay, yeah. Lauren, did you have a... Yeah, I just wanted to pick up on what Darcy mentioned about the sort of parallels between the transformation that the town is experiencing around racial equity and climate justice and the connections there. And I think that that's another great reflection for this committee to be integrating into their process as we go forward because there are so many intersections there and as with COVID-19, these things really are changing the experience of what it means to be alive right now. So, I think that baseline, we might never go back to it, Darcy, to your point. So, it's also an opportunity to think really transformationally and I think that is what's happening. So, yeah, I just wanted to elevate that point about racial equity and climate justice. Yeah, and I think it'd be helpful to maybe have a, like a little bit of an opening statement, kind of trying to reflect this a little bit, both the acknowledging all the things really, but sort of with that take that, you know, I guess I personally have felt the hope that I've felt in these past few months, which is mostly not been hopeful, but I have felt moments of hopefulness in it. I think it's because of, I think this six months ago, you know, things felt so, change felt so hard. And now we've seen when we're forced to, we change really quickly. And I think it's opened up this whole other minefield of like all the things we could do if we were just open to being, to change from the racial equity piece in particular and like how we're pushing for it in a way that, you know, many people have been doing for many, many, many years. And, you know, I think that the change is possible in a way that it wasn't pre COVID because we were kind of set in our ways. And so I hope that that is true. I think it is true with the work we're doing as well. Yeah. Sorry, I was muted there. I just also wanted to say that a great place to potentially reflect on that as co-chairs is where in the first meetings, all of the agendas have a brief introduction to part of the ECAC charge that talks about public participation, community engagement. And that might be a great place to add some reflections on racial equity and what's happening there. So, but yeah, because it kind of has a point. I just wanted to caution you all on really considering if you are going to make a statement around racial equity or around equity in general, that it's a statement that you can support with some sort of committed action. In my experience in community with Black, Indigenous and people of color, it is far worse to hear somebody make some sort of very progressive sounding statement and not follow it up with action than it is to hear it completely avoided. It's a slap in the face, honestly. And our town has been through a couple of weeks of those kinds of statements. So I just really wanna ask that you all consider being very thoughtful about what you actually can commit to if you think about it, making some sort of statement. Yeah, that's really a good point, I think that's a guy I think going. That point I wanna just say too though that, I mean, this committee can't really totally commit to anything, it's making recommendations. So anything that's recommended, has to sort of go through the gauntlet. So I think the point is to sort of, I think it's one of those things where we talk about sort of that aspirations for sort of what long-term you know, could look like and what we would like to see because I think we also don't wanna get into position where we don't sort of think about the fact that we have this pretty lofty goal that we need to meet and I think it's gonna take moving towards some of those things to get us there. So I hear you 100% because I just also wanna say that this committee can't commit, I mean, can't fully commit to anything, really. Which is where the caution comes in, yeah. Yeah, and I think maybe more along the lines of, let's not use COVID and the financial implications of COVID to narrow us on a very limited scope of work that we feel is only possible, but yet, but let's maybe still, let's still come to the discussion and the meetings with these big ideas and things that we, we know where we need to go. That's clear, right? So like, I don't want us to, I want us to have the current situation in front of mind, but that's almost not our role. I'm thinking out loud now but that's almost not our role in some respects, right? Like, it's up to us to identify what we need to do as a town to support our community and to push forward environmental justice around climate change and meet our goals. And so we need to prioritize our actions based on that and then we need to figure out how we do it from like a financial perspective or all of those other things. And that has to be a lens we apply, but I don't wanna limit our discussion in a way that just limits that, if that makes sense. Yeah, Darcy. I think if you're thinking of what you're gonna say in your presentation next week, I think it's good to push the town council on the issue of racial equity because we need it. You know, like assume there's an expectation that we're gonna do more and do it soon. Yeah, that's a good point, Darcy. And I didn't- Our action was disappointing to many in the town, our lack of action. Yeah. And I think we can use the presentation to the town council on Monday to also tee up to Lauren's point. I don't think we're ready now to have any really robust reflection on the process and we're just getting into it, but to tee up the fact that we will want to supply the council and other committees with a robust reflection on how we did this process, what worked, what didn't work, what they could do, you know, so I think we should, I'll make a note to kind of like tee that up in that presentation, Stephanie and I can do that. Yeah, I was gonna say, Laura, we need to coordinate because I had some thoughts about that too. So I think we're both wanting to say some of the same things, so let's just talk after. All right, folks. Well, unless there's any other pressing issues, I think we could call it a meeting. In terms of the next agenda, I think a big part will be sort of debriefing from our task group meetings, keeping in mind sort of how we're engaging with our community leaders and our stakeholders and if there's other ways we want to engage with them outside of the task groups or as we move forward, the process. Laura, I'm sorry, I just wanted to jump in real quick and this might be, I don't know if Lauren, Mike and Gazika, I might have thoughts on this as our consultants, but there are a few sectors, stakeholder leaders who couldn't necessarily make the first meeting, but are interested in contributing or attending future meetings. So I just wondered, I know we're trying to sort of create this sort of more closed kind of group, for the task group work, so I just wondered how people felt about that, about people joining in for the second and third meeting if they can't make the first one. Yeah, that's a good question, Stephanie. Are there many folks in that position or is it just one or two? Just a couple, literally just maybe two. And there's a few that can't make it and then just want to be able to somehow get involved in the process some other way, which I would just direct them to the co-chairs. Yeah, I was gonna suggest if we have a few people that are not going to be able to make it to one or more meetings, but want to participate, maybe we could have a separate session for those folks if it's a big enough group, just so that they still have a conversation, but it's not disruptive to the task groups that have already been underway. But I'm sort of on the fence. Yeah, I also think it could be worth considering offering to them what we've offered to the community leaders around having one-on-one conversations outside of group time. So if they want to check in and rather than jump into the group late that if they want to talk outside of group with the committee members or with Lauren, Jim or I or yourself and contribute that that would be welcome and that we could offer them reflections on what's happening in the groups and get their input. And that might be a way for them to be participating alongside without disrupting sort of the relationship building that's gonna be happening in the groups. Yeah, that definitely works. Yeah, I would say that I think I wouldn't want them to go cold into meeting too. Right. So I think that there would need to be some accommodation, reasonable accommodation. I don't think that we should meet with 10 individual people or so. You know, I may think we would have to look at the numbers and figure it out, but that would be my. Like I said, it's not many. So I think, you know, the logical thing is to sort of just get them in touch with the co-chairs. Great. Great. So just in terms of action, it is beyond the task group. Darcy, you were gonna draft up those goals for the, to submit for consideration for the town manager. Am I missing anything else? Okay. Well, I think that, Andrew, did you have any public comment to close us out? You're muted if you wanted to say anything. No, again, thank you for letting me sit in. I'm very interested in the process and how it plays out and I'd like to, I have 40 years experience in energy efficiency and buildings and I'd like to be seen as a resource to the committee. And I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Great. Thank you. All right, everybody. Well, good luck with everybody's task group meetings and we'll reconvene. Okay, awesome. Bye.