Recording in progress. Get stuck in traffic cuz it was big car fire 28. I don't want to go exit. Yes. Our intention is intention is three when it get down to three. Yeah. Except because
three is good. Three is good. Why? Yeah. And I think we should give them enough time for interview because actually interview time would also three three can be more time than four. Sure. Okay. Um, do we have Rich?
I don't see Rich on yet. Not yet. Okay. Uh, well, we So, why don't we go ahead and get started? Ready, Erica? Okay. So, um, it being 6:01 on September
17th, we'll call this meeting to order. Uh this meeting is being audio recorded remotely on Zoom and livereamed on RCTV. Uh the board of commissioners recognizes the importance of hearing public comment at the discretion of the chair on items on the official agenda. Once recognized by the chair, all persons addressing the
board shall state their name and address prior to speaking. It's the role of the chair to maintain order and all public comment and ensuing discussion. Do we have any public comment? Oh, I see Rich. Yeah. Um yeah, I want to um respond to Rebecca Lieberman who sent an
email and yeah, we'll start our meeting too. Oh yeah, sorry about that. Okay, sorry. We start the cab meeting. Sorry. Uh and then I also have a comment. Please go ahead. But I also have a comment after that. All right. Okay. Um and and so number
one, I want to acknowledge that she sent in a comment. Uh the question was what would be the additional cost uh in rate if we went from 55% renewable energy or non-carbon to 75%. Um so I want to acknowledge that question. Uh it's not
an easy one to answer retrospectively because it it's been a while since we looked at it. But I do want to uh state that that's what the RM is looking at right now. they met with staff and and are looking at
various costs and impacts of um different rate non-carbon percentages above 55% and um their recommendations will come to us in early next year and we'll have a recommendation going forward. So um
don't have short answer to her question but it is something that we're looking at uh right now and the recommendation will be coming out when we set rates in this in the spring and just to add to that we we do look at that annually annually right um I want to acknowledge
your comment thanks okay so actually I have two comments one is uh we have a quorum we have three members today but Charlie Pupapus who's our fourth member. He couldn't attend.
Uh his mother has passed away recently and the cab expresses their condolences to Charlie and his family. So I just want that recorded. Thank you. And uh in the same way uh Vrauchi who's here from
his father passed away last month and our condolences to you sir. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Um, liaons, I don't think we have the uh liaison from the blackboard on, but do you have any? Um,
yeah, I do have Yeah, I do have a couple of um comments about things that I do when I'm not just doing RLD stuff. Um so the Kllum school project uh that is under design and
construction um they will not be adding a emergency power generator to their um their site. It's not going to be a shelter in scenario. So they don't need to have a generator. That's going to save the town of Reading um $500,000
uh in in not having that. So they will be relying on battery and and and power that would would come in support of that project. Um recal which is the other project across the street uh the senior center um they
are looking at roof solar and ground swiss heat pump uh and they are struggling with higher prices of solar and have been asking you know what additional things might we provide. Um, I've been referred to uh Mark Doxer to follow up on that and we'll include
Megan and Ird on discussions with Recal uh on and their solar efforts and and what we might do either in front of the uh meter or behind the meter. Um, rooftop solar is always uh easier to install than other solar
options. So, um, we'll see what how we can make that happen. Um and another topic the town charter uh was approved by the board of selectmen or the select board as they like to say. Um the the chapter of the
fexos was unchanged. We um abstain from um that recommendation. Um but it is has been approved by the select board and will go before town meeting as a part of the warrant. Uh yeah that's that's the highlights.
Thank you. Um and on the uh general uh manager search uh we are at the stage where we are actually interviewing candidates. Um we've had some excellent interviews and we continue on in the in that process at
at the moment. So um in terms of scheduling, do we have an estimated time frame of when we might do interviews in front of the board? Um not not at this time. Okay. Not not at this time. I mean I I our our goal is to have um that in some point in
November by November if not earlier um you know it is it is almost October um so you know our that is our goal to have and we know about post contract right telling everybody January 4
if uh yeah we 2027 correct if we're able to move faster obviously we want to be able Yeah, that's our speed is our game. We are meeting almost uh we met uh Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and last week we met multiple days uh
anticipation uh several more days next week. So we are working curiously towards u getting camp. Thank you for that. And I do want to add um one of the things that we did is in preparation for that is meet with various uh RMLD staff groups. Um the three of us uh divided
our time and and talked to different groups and we consolidated the feedback from from the staff here what their strengths what what would they like to see in a leader uh and I want to recognize that because it has been very much a part of our thinking and
discussion as we've talked about and talked to the candidates. Um some of the candidates have asked what's what things are you looking in a leader and we've repeated that back to them as far as uh what we're looking for. So want to acknowledge that that feedback is been
useful and guiding us in in that effort. Great. Excellent. Um contract committee Rich on Rich Rich is on. Rich, do you want to share any updates from the contract committee? Yeah, thanks. uh as long as assuming
everybody can hear me I'm off mute so uh assuming you can hear me um yes we have met uh one time uh and I our committee meeting or our committee is myself as the chair Dave Talbett and
Vivec I think is our total committee. Um so we are uh progressing. We will probably have uh another meeting here in the next one to two weeks um to uh continue to move forward on the contract
drafting. All right. Um why don't we move forward into uh approval of meeting minutes. Okay. So on the meeting minutes, I was asked to provide my language. I had shared that language as I recalled from
July 23rd. Paul had some feedback on that and I think we've exchanged some emails on it but it I think uh Paul would like to just have us reflect on what we heard
and he had some commentary on it so that I I think it's before we you know decide on the so I don't think we're going to approve any minutes here today right Erica is that correct so either you can um agree on the verbiage and approve them with the condition that I'll update the verbiage
age or we can um approve the next assignments. You're cool. Okay, fine. So, so let let's try to get the stuff done. Do you want to see me to pull the minutes or the email up? Um pull up the email because the minutes is a lot of stuff.
We're going to go Rebecca, I'm going to start with your suggested language in red here. Erica, is that in on the tablet here? This email? No, that's um that's on the screen. Thank you. Oh, okay.
Yeah. So, so the main thing was that the auditors said you don't want to pay down your pension and OPED reliability uh liabilities faster than the town of Reading. Okay. So, I I wanted that recorded so that at least that's a
guiding framework for the commissioners and the cabin. you know there was a lot of discussion but I I wanted to have a takeaway and so clearly because because there's the risk that you know there's
co-mingling of funds and what Paul has highlighted is that that's true for pension but OPED is different and OPED there's no co-mingling is that correct correct so the because the pensions come from the town our money gets co-mingled
with them but the OPED there was legislation that was passed good number of years ago that allows the life plan to establish their own fund which is kept separate from the town's money so
that those dollars are not comingled. So you know depending on finances at any given point and you know whatever the board decides it wants to do if they want to pay down the and it's it can change with the stock and all that kind of stuff. It's not. But anyway, you can
the board can elect to contribute at a faster rate to the OPED and not worry about those dollars getting co-mingled with the towns. Yeah. So, so the the pension liability is greater, right? The pension is a li greater liability than the OPED
liability. But I I think it makes sense to track the the reading level of payments so that we stick with that for pension and do the OPED at the rate that we think it's financially responsible. I
I don't have the numbers in front of me, Paul, but you can correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. So, I'm looking at the at the meeting minutes and it talks about the pension liability having decreased by 2 million due to favorable interest in investment returns. This is what I just
said, right? Market goes up, we riding that wave. If it goes down, it could change. I look at the absolute number. I want to just look at what is the absolute liability for pension. Absolute liability for OPEs. But my sense is pension is a bigger number. I I don't know that that's the case. I
see that the liability increase I I don't see a number that describes. Yeah, the audit report had all those numbers. The audit report had all the numbers. But so so the main at least in terms of the minutes, the language that
I think I would recommend to be put in is the takeaway is keep the pension pay down at the same rate as the town of Reading. and for OPED can make a financial decision based on the financials that
year. I think that pretty well sums up what you just said pretty well sums up the email exchange. Yeah. So, are the two of you in alignment with this change? We're in alignment with what I at Could
you I think the email exchange is above that. to zero and then VEX is and then VC responds above that saying okay you want to see my email again but I thought I thought you agreed to
the statement I made right now right I agreed to with what you just said correct so so let's go so she'll just incorporate that in the minutes and then we're done so basically the red I'll change to say basically the takeaway was to keep the pension rate the same and the OPAD will
be based on a financial decision. Yes, correct. Okay. Thank you. Well, it says pension. It says pay down there. However, you should Oh, not pay down. Okay. Yeah. Fascinating. Like the the point is going to be split.
A separate point around pension. Yes. Thank you. Y. So with those changes plan to be reflected, would you like to Okay. moved that the RMLD Citizens Advisory Board approve the following 2025
open session minutes meeting as discussed. As discussed on the recommendation of the interim general manager and the board secretary July 23rd, 2025. A second. All in favor? Uh, anyone want to read the motion for
move that the ARM lady board of commission has approved the following 2025 open session meeting minutes um as amended uh on the recommendation of the interim general manager and the board secretary. Second. All those in favor?
Motion carries or Oh, sorry. Um, we're gonna have to do a roll call. I'm sorry, Rich. I forgot about you. Um, so, uh, can we do a quick roll call vote? Uh, Swanson. Yes. How did I
Yeah, thanks. 5. Um, okay. So, last time we met, we had the team from ENE join us. Uh, we did not manage to get through all of the content. Um, so we've allocated another um kind of short time period um for the
remaining content and uh so I appreciate um the two of you joining us um again uh to to cover that content. Um I know we wanted to ensure that as we work through this content we have an understanding of you know where are we talking about kind of general services available versus
where is RMLD currently taking services. Um and I know the team is interested in just kind of understanding what those options are and costs associated. So sure kind of focus on that as we go through the project. That'd be great. Yeah. So I can you guys have no
I would win and I don't know if he talked to you about it but at least the cab would like to understand where is the money being spent on ENE services. what what are the things that we are spending on and Erica can pull
that up if necessary and since we're going to go into budgeting what are the services that we're going to need going forward so help us you have 20 minutes help us look at all of this information so that thank you
Sure I'll I'll do what I can um so thank you for having us back uh null chambers director of energy efficiency and electrification at Energy New England um we'll sort of Accept this. [Music] Technical difficulties. They get an
extra minute. They're on low clock. Do you guys have the presentation on your Weeful. Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't like share. Um, so yeah. Uh so my team is a fairly
small team. I've got uh Kintaso as our operations manager. So generally speaking, that means she uh has broad responsibility of our residential and commercial programs for things like uh home energy assessments, commercial assessments, uh both of those rebate
programs. So the resi and commercial rebate programs as well as the um solar programs. Uh Caitlyn Ley Barb uh comes out of uh organizations that have historically supported commercial and industrial programs under Mass Save and
the IUS and runs our uh EV group. So the transportation electrification team. Um and then we have a number of other staff members. So we have five uh home energy assessors. Three of them are full-time, two of them are part-time. We have one
customer service representative who takes does all the the phone calls and schedulings for about 2,000 assessments a year. Um we've got uh one full-time and one part-time uh employee to do rebate processing. Uh we've got one
marketing staff and three uh part-time EV staff members. Is it okay if we ask questions during the just quick ones? Yeah, sure. Because we're not using this hope this pro program that you just described, right? Uh yes. So the home energy assessment program I believe you
discussed and approved a uh a bid with a boat and I think just to clear up maybe a misunderstanding about that bid and did receive a copy of it. Uh the way the language in the bid was structured there's effectively one company in the
state that could fulfill the entirety of that scope as a single entity. You awarded that contract to that organization. There's one other company that could probably do it as well. Um, they sounds like they did not bid. I didn't see a response on the website. We
don't have a number of those things on staff. In fact, many of nine of the communities that we do home energy assessments with. We also work in concert with Abode for them to do the heat pump and weatherization consultative services. I wasn't asking it to get into like the
the whatever's going on with procurement. That's not what this is about is what I would just like to see is let's focus on the things that RMLD is using. What are we doing with you? What are we spending? What are we getting? That's what I would hope to get out of this. Okay. Move like quickly through the general stuff. No, no. I I guess that's a excellent point because the clarification of it is
Yeah. Well, one of the why why didn't we go that route when we're already using we already have you as a service provider here? We already have you under contract, but that would be an additional contract or was that one of the services you provided already? Or
would that be a paid for service? We in addition, we h it had been a bid for home energy assessment, home energy assessments. There was a bid that you guys put out every three years for and we had won it
the previous two cycles. And the the way that you I think were looking to to do your program was to change it and make it a weatherization and heat pump consultative program rolled in with the home energy assessment to really promote that aspect
for your community members as I understood what the bid was written as um and you you moved away from that there's well we're under an $86,000 three-year contract with the right now I think right I just just looking from the AP warrant that there's a $2,400 charge every month and and it said it's on a
threeear contract through 2027. So what is that for? That is for what ends up being that is your your tier one, your required spend as an owner. Um so that's for staffing for the
CFR or CSR for our um uh why am I blanking on it? CRM um the all the other sort of office style aspects of keeping the the lights in the building staffed. Can can can you actually get back to us
with a breakdown as to what are we getting? I mean or Paul maybe you guys already have this but I think it's helpful for us because before we go into the next budget cycle we should be very clear about this. So in fact there there's a
service agreement that um between ENE and and RMLD that lists every single service that's provided for the monthly fee in that and then um you know we're also available if if you want
see my my bad like you know I I I I go by whatever meeting documents we get and I prepare based on that and you know we we look at stuff. So this is information that's not I mean if we scan all the documents that are available maybe we
can find it but uh I I I think it'll be helpful Paul if you can provide this to us because he request something to get up so I think the service agreement spells it out line by line um you know
everything including the power supply the reviews the the power purchases all of that Um the the other thing um that I was going to say we're available is as you go into budgeting if you find it helpful that our um staff might you know
help in other services I I watched the the u the film of the last meeting and I know John had said you know we do shared services if there are other things and I know null has an example in his group
where um savings can be achieved. It's really a decision up to you. Um just like every MLP decides to buy X percent of a project or not to uh buy in a project. Um you have the ability to
select these services alleart um especially if there's a savings um that that you would see in in a budget line item. Yeah. No, it's just that because there's a disconnect between all the stuff that we're discussing here and mapping to
what gets spent, you know. So, I I think because normally everything else we're used to seeing, okay, you're doing something, it's costing you so much, right? I mean, that it's always easy to relate to, you know, dollars and activity. So, yeah. So, yeah, the the $2,400 a month
goes to the RCS admin. That also goes to um the uh annual reporting to the DOE for the programs um for both the what you're going to do over the course of the year and then going and looking back compiling all that uh remaining into the
DER. Um there's the solar program where we help in augmenting your staff in processing solar rebates. We do somewhere between 40 and 60 of them uh
for reading. Uh so that's that's part of the 2400. No, that is not that is that's a separate uh scope of work uh scope of work 10 I believe. Um and then sorry 10 what?
It's s10 is what we call it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that is there's a an what's that bank? An application fee per for per for each application that we receive. Um, and then a variable
uh 7% of basically the the rebate value is what we uh offtake as the the processing um our cost to process that rebate. Um we do that same program for six other municipal light plants at the
same percentages and cost values. Uh and then the other program that you hold with us is for what is in effect the basic services for RMLD drives electric. So the RMLD drives electric website. Uh
the customer education uh and awareness programs. Um, so we st uh an 800 number so we're able to to be on call and support your customers in any questions they have about how they go through their EV adoption process.
So those are the we in in the territory on the spot number. Okay, sorry. Keep going. Yep. So, those are the the three services you you currently have with us.
Um the I guess the the presentation I was going to go through and I can make it uh fairly rapid uh from here on out to sort of talk about what else we do to sort of give you the full picture I think is FVC was uh asking about is what other services do we provide. Um so the
core services as you can see here um you know rebate processing incentive processing the solar program we do uh we've got the rebate portal um commercial industrial programs uh we both do that internally and externally and the program which you you currently
offtake customer engagement so marketing and events um and other extended services we do a fair amount of work with nonMLP customers including helping to manage the more EV program so so so on So question for Paul and then I mean out of those services are
there things that you guys are already exploring what we may want so that at least we are aware of that we do keep a list we do keep a list of the services that we have to the previous slide
So what would we want from this? So we do the solar rebate that's uh third one solar program and we do the EV the RMLD drives EV. Okay. Uh I think with NOS's group that the two
we currently have. So that's what we have. Yeah. Okay. But and we had the home energy assessment previously, right? Yeah. which which I guess I'm when we did the bid award because they they they
was not involved and it was it I guess my question is why was the scope written in the way of the scope and we already had a partner doing all this and we could have just done an augment for one piece rather than change the entire award. I guess I was not wasn't very
clear to me. Yeah, it was not to change the uh structure or whatever the word you said of the heat pump program, but rather there's the overlap between the home energy assessment and the heat pump and weatherization program we already
had and it was at the time the um HA program was ending in June with EN and the program the contract with ABOT was ending in August. So when we have a new bid for the heat pump weatherization
program, we we we didn't change any of the, you know, the the scope of that program, but but we just ended the HA program without extending it, without uh going out for a new BIM. But it it sounds like there was something customized in the bid process
that prohibited No, it did not. I'm just what I'm hearing. So that's that's why I'm but again I'm just curious as to why you know we had a service that END was a vendor EN was a service provider a board was also a service
provider so we were working with a board we were working with right but we got a bid from one and not the other because the bid precluded one from applying if I'm if because not all the same services were offered if if I'm
understanding that correctly. So I guess I I I guess the bid that would be the question. Just to clarify, the bid for the heat pump and weatherization does not have a specific item for HA, but it does involve a goping visit to do
weatherization. It also involves a manual J analysis for the heat pump installation. Both of these are very detailed home energy assessment. So we feel that is adequate for the customer to understand what they can do to
improve the efficiency of their power. No, no, understood. But that's a again a smaller I don't I don't know how many heat pump adoptions that we have here. It seems like a a smaller we have about 200 over 200 a year with TP. Yeah. When you say heat pump you we talking
mini split used to be. Yeah. Okay. Just that I think geo I'm sorry I apologize. I don't think they just Yeah, we're starting to get old. Sorry, new program scope expanded to include uh
ground source heat pump and water to air heat pump. Okay. Um, so one one thing I will note is you are the only municipal light plant that does not have uh standalone home energy
assessments which look at all end uses in your building offered to your customers at effectively nonobligated cost that they don't have to go forward with doing other components at the tail end of it. I don't know if that's true. I just
talked to another MLP that they also don't have it that that that's on enveloping of the home, right? So we look at every we look at all the appliances, everything in the home and provide a report to the customer that gives them not just the weatherization and heat pump potential
improvements, but replace your stove with induction stove, replace your refrigerator with an Energy Star one, do an Energy Star pool pump, sort of all the other incillary improvements in the building beyond uh strictly speaking as weatherization and heat pumps.
So is this like what Mass would do in other areas? Uh so we don't go to the full end of then providing a an actionable proposal. We are we go and we do the home energy assessment and then we'll answer questions for the customer about where they can
potentially go to to get that work and any other contextualized back and forth they may have about how we can help them move down that decarbonization or electrification journey that they may be looking to undertake.
and rough rough numbers. I think half of our customers are are massive eligible roughly I think right natural guess. Yeah, correct. Is that Yeah, I have no idea. Yeah, we've done we've done we've done surveys about Yeah.
Yeah. But it would be good to know how many people are looking for that an assessment, aren't looking for a heat pump, aren't masses eligible, but are looking for and how many of those you get. There's one. Okay, it's true. He's one.
And just to confirm, we don't currently offer that, but it'll be interesting how many how many sub requests are we getting. Uh when we ended the HA um we put the notice on the website and
uh I think we have maybe uh five to eight inquiries people called and then we direct them you know you know this is the how we kind of incorporate the assessment as part of the heat pump and weatherization
program. So it you know suggest for them to you know consider the heat pump at weather. Yeah it c it we we caveed the home energy assessment to have to have a heat pump in parallel with it because we're supplying electricity. We're not here to
help out the oil industry. Right. And and again I agree or disagree that was the decision. Um, but there are a lot of customers that could benefit from a home energy assessment and because it wasn't offered that that has been a turnoff at at at Reading Light because like now we
don't do that and interesting similar to Mass. Interestingly enough um I would say 90% of the customers who are using making uh taking advantage of the heatcom program they their old system are oil based
systems. So yeah, so if they are a natural gas switch that's an easy switch that would so if they are a natural gas customer they can get free assessment from natural grid. Correct.
Correct. So maybe would be what would be helpful is just to understand as we approach budgeting to your to your point is if we were to explore offering an incremental program to the to those customers who don't qualify otherwise who don't have the interest in the heat pump and also don't qualify what would
that cost what would that look like this is part of ouration so I think this comes back to the point I think Dave um mentioned a few times about you know weatherization for customers who are using oil and can
benefit from natural grid. Um I think that might be a approach that we can think about instead of just doing assessment. I mean I I'm just going to make the comment. Um,
we did do the analysis of the past six to eight months of home energy assessment results and the overwhelming majority of the recommended um measures that RMLD can influence are on weatherization, the installation of
attics, walls, basement, you name it. um if there's you know more efficient appliances most customers already know and by the end of last year we already got rid of most of the appliances rebates anyway. Um if the recommendation is to install
you know more efficient windows that's outside the scope of our business. So I I really believe, you know, this new program that this new heat pump and weatherization program is really covering what the customers can actually take action to to do instead of just
having a nice report but not taking action. And I can say customers who have taken the assessments in the past, they don't match the program participant. They're not part they they were not driven to actually participate in a rebate program.
uh heat pump and I would I wouldn't say they didn't participate in appliances. Appliances is a very wides you know spread program so everyone pretty much takes it if they if they you know happen to buy a new appliance. So this is the kind of the thinking
behind it. Just to understand what you just said. You're saying the people who took the assessment weren't doing anything with the information that you could tell. Exactly. Okay. Well, you know, except for the heat pump once.
Yeah. Yeah. If if if they decide not to. Well, you're helping them out to make a choice, right? That that's the whole point, whether or not they do the windows or the installation. If they decide not to the heat pump, that's a personal economic decision for a customer at that point in time. Right.
To be clear though, if they decided if they got the report said they should replace their windows and they chose to replace their windows, we would know that. We would not know that. But what I think what I was saying is I would just love to understand what it would cost to give them the option. It's an option that they have as if they were a national
grid customer. It is not an option that they have at all if they're if they're not interested in initially pursuing heat pump. It doesn't mean that they it might not say you would benefit from having a heat pump and maybe some of them decide actually this is economically feasible. I should do it.
But if they don't have the option of doing that kind of broad assessment, I'm not saying we should offer it. I'm just saying it'd be helpful to understand the cost of what it would look like. That makes sense to me, too. Yeah. Anyway, great presentation. Thank you
very much. Yeah. 21. Um, yeah, I if I can be really quick or we can just go straight to to Vins if you want. Um, so yeah, we do somewhere I the the numbers are a
bigger range because it's building up over time. So from 2019 till now we've ranged between 1,200 and 2100 assessments a year. Um, all our auditors are BPI certified. uh we help to meet the under the statutory requirement that
or regulation. Uh the only thing you have to do to meet your RCS minimum spend requirement is a home energy assessment with Massachusetts home energy scorecard. Uh that's what we help most of our light plants accomplish. that is being translated into the
proposed MLP section of the the legislation carrying forward that it's home energy assessments with the Massachusetts home energy scorecard. So that's what we help our light plants really accomplish by having Snug Pro with the scorecard from the D built into
the back end of it. Uh customers can receive an energy kit savings toolkit. So, light bulbs, plug strips, and other um items uh direct shipped to their home, drop shipped to their home. When we had been doing home energy assessments, uh I believe Reading had an
online store. You were not participating in that because you felt it was a better place to have your customers go through there, which makes a lot of sense. We've got two or three other light plants to do the same thing. So, from rebate processing perspective, we administer rebate programs for 10 municipal light plants. Broad swath
swath of things. So, our two employees, one and a half employees are on track, at least this year by projections, to be somewhere between 2100 and 2200 rebates processed. And that's about uh what we would call standard rebates to about
twothirds towards that. So, that's appliances, lawn equipment, um and EV level two charging. Uh, and then complex rebates are things like weatherization and heat pumps. Just takes more time, more paperwork, different bits and pieces that we have to review. I think
at the end of 2024, writing did roughly,00 rebates um across the year. Uh, so we process them all internally. Um, we have our own CRM that we do that on. Um, solar rebates. This is built into that same system. We administer the program
for seven light plants. We average somewhere between 40 and 70 rebates uh processed through that per year. And again, it's all done internally utilizing our own CRM with application frontends that we can move, change, and and adjust to programs on the fly, which
is I think really nice and there's no additional cost to make changes unlike the old system that we had been using. So, we provide a rebate portal to all light plants that we process rebates for. This allows them to be able to just jump in and look at they got a customer called up saying, "Hey, what's the
status of rebate XYZ or they've got a customer who's wondering why their bill credit hasn't been applied or something like that and they can without even needing to come and ask us to do it. They can jump into the portal and go through and figure that out. Uh it's also where we have all of our light
plants sign in and do the MLP approval process basically saying, "Hey, this customer is in good standing. you can process the rebate. Uh commercial programs, we help manage commercial audit and rebate programs for 10 light plants. We do internal staff up to about 25,000 square feet. That's
typically when you get past that, building facility systems start getting a little bit outside of what you consider small business sort of standard prototypical 5 to 10 ton rooftop unit type things. Uh and at that point, we've got uh an established contract with the
Rise Group. Um they are also a technical services provider to the IUS under the mass save program and they work across a couple other states specifically doing energy efficiency energy analysis work. Um they've got a long history of that. I
will raise my hand and say I'm from there so I'm fairly comfortable with the work they do. Um so that helps. But we process uh commercial rebates for things like lighting, LED lighting upgrades, refrigeration controls, level two charging stations, and commercial heat pumps. Uh EV programs you currently have
our core services program, which is the white label uh website, the residential help desk, and any type of rebate advisory um for those. So historical monthly volume not specifically for your program but across the 10 light plants
is about 2500 customers websites we're seeing about a thousand active users that builds in a comprehensive services which add in things like marketing support which is uh a regular cadence of marketing pieces that come out as well as adding in commercial support. So
engaging with your commercial customers about how do they put in workplace level two charging for their employees or fleet charging uh those types of things. And then we just have bulk uh TNM services. Uh we also have an online tool called the drive and saver wizard which is very much a pick your own pathway
type tool which lets the customer sort of compare two or three different options on a car and then get a breakdown specific to your community and your rates and your incentives about what their total cost of ownership would be. No. So when you say EV program, so this
would not be a residential EV charging, right? This is both residential and commercial. So, like if Dave is like an EV charger, is he on your system? So, we I have a plug-in hybrid, right? So, I mean, I have my 240 volt charging line,
but I don't know if I I I don't see anything in here. So, so we don't if we're a we work with the light plant to help encourage them to put stuff like marketing pieces on their social media um to have the website out there,
promote the website, promote the opportunity for customers in town to learn about electric vehicles. So, this is about learn about electrification. Correct. It's EV education and awareness. It's EV education. So, if you're if you're an EV charger today, you have no visibility on this, right? So we don't
know who the individual customers are in your community who have EVs. Correct. Okay. So I just wanted to understand. Yeah. But the smart meters will be able to find out theoretically. Yeah. You'd be able to find them pretty easily. Yeah. Or Yeah.
Theoretically fairly easily. Yeah. We'll get you. So uh some extended services. So we do we have been doing charger uh infrastructure advisory services. So, what that that means is working with some institutional fleet customers.
We've got one customers electrifying their 140 vehicle um fleet and we're helping them walk through that process. uh in one other light plant. We're helping uh a couple of their customers actually walk through the process of uh
selecting the vendor um going through uh equipment selections and just helping to shepherd that process so that the customer has a good end result with equipment that's going to work for what they're trying to accomplish. Um we are also the dealership engagement vendor for the more EV program. Uh that's the
uh $3,500 on the hood if you buy an EV under $55,000 in the state of Massachusetts. Uh E&E is effectively directly responsible for I think 240 of the 300 and change uh registered dealers as part of that program.
And we do a lot of events on an annual basis. Uh we do tableabling, we help at uh heat pump forums, uh we also help put on trainings. Uh EV events are really the the core thing that we do an awful
lot of in large part because of our uh more EV uh relationship. We're out I think doing last month we were at 10 or 15 different events, sometimes backtoback on the same days with multiple staff members. Um, but we also for the light plants that we work with
and just some other uh municipalities will come to us and say, "Hey, can you help us put on a ride and drive?" Um, and we'll help provide those types of services. Right. Doesn't even
We did We did last year. I do not Yeah. Oh, we did. Yeah. So, okay. So, that didn't involve you guys. It did not. Okay. Okay. Um, sorry, I'm gonna have to cut
short so that we can get to I know you want to do legislative update. So, any other Okay. Okay. So, I I know John went over sort of a high level. I just wanted to get, you know, to a little bit more about
what we do at A&E strategies. Um, we represent 30 of the municipal light plants. So, not just the uh the ENE clients, um I also have nine of the MWAC clients um that I also represent. Um we
have strong relationships um extra strong ones in your district um and uh meet with them um quite often. Um I I over the past um year since I last came
here um we had two meetings. One which was uh legislative and regulatory officials to give them an update on all of the great things that RMLD has in planning um and and is looking at like the battery storage and then I helped
with uh getting those folks to come to the um the ribbon cutting. I know VC you were there. Um but um you know we do advocacy um strategy development for for projects that uh whether it's a grant
opportunity or whe or whether um in the case of um the ASUS grant previously for the the project in North Reading. Um we also helped with uh getting the assessor to understand uh valuation of um of that
material because the um because the system is not you know it's it's on uh public land but it's also owned by uh a private company. Next slide.
So accomplishments. Um, again, the big the biggest of late was the uh climate bill and and getting the municipal light plants uh to the uh 2030, 40 and 50 goals um the same as the IUS
um to net zero by 2050. Um and and you guys know we're well, you know, RMLD is well on their way to achieving that goal. Um, we helped develop the street light program, the solar rebate program
for municipal light plants. And again, these were programs that came from ideas. Um, they didn't exist. They were only being offered to uh, IUS and by us working with the commissioners, we were
able to create um, these programs. Um, I've also done home rule. um couple of times have worked on the potential of doing um an article 97 um for a new transformer um that's been
on again off again and um that may come back on again uh at at some point in time. Um but working on the special legislation uh to to do things like that. Um as I mentioned the the tax
settlement and um and also our presence um we have been on every energy related commission um that the governor andor legislature when they have appointments uh to represent um municipal light
plants. Next slide. Um wanted to touch on this. I know John uh briefly did, but um to summarize it quickly, it's dead. Um we're supportive
of uh House 3549. Um the bill was just uh this past week extended in committee. So no action on any of the bills um in in the uh telecommunications
uh utility and energy energies committee have moved. Um but because of their rules, they need to be extended or they just die. Um that bill in particular was extended this this week. So that means it's still alive. My sense is that it
may even be joined to um another larger bill. The past three sessions, they've passed an omnibus bill at the state house. Um it appears the vehicle may be the governor's um affordability bill and
taking other bills and attaching them to this bill may be one of the opportunities for something like that. Um quick follow up on that one. Sure. Because yeah, John mentioned this last time and um I think it was the first time we knew that ENE had taken a
position. Um, and I'm just wondering I mean the I think the operating room it says you'll let us know what your positions are or somewhere it does that the the board or the gentle manager gets told what what is ENE proposing to support or oppose on Beacon Hill. And I
guess just going forward I think it would be good I think I might speak for my colleagues. We'd like to know kind of in a timely manner what is it that you're you're advocating or not advocating because when did it when did it occur that that position was taken?
when um so this is a meme um related position. So uh it came up at a meme meeting at the legislative committee and what we've been doing is uh ENEWAC and a meme representative have been pitching
as a three-person panel at most of the hearings and uh this was one of the bills that we decided I'm just wondering when when did he take the position? This was I believe I'll get you the exact date.
It was last month. It was only a month ago. Yes. Oh, okay. Maybe he was only here a month. Month. A month and a before that. Okay. Might have been the week before he came here. Oh, okay. It was that fresh. Yeah. Okay. Because there were there there have been seven hearings to date. There's a
hearing scheduled for next week because that bill's also been kicking around for a bunch of months, like a year or so, right? So, but we weren't hearing anything about like what did our milty board want to support or oppose or what were you proposing to support or oppose. So, all I'm saying is going forward is like in a more timely manner, hey, this
bill is up there. Sure. What do you want us to do or tell us what you propose to do? That's all. Okay. Well, one of one of the challenges we as commissioners have is that meme in particular and I'm guessing any by
association um is geared toward general managers. The general manners have been good and while commissioners are generally in municipal life plants intended to set policy, we have literally not been invited to
those meetings and discussions. So, it's either through the generosity of a general manager to make time to talk about his position that he's taking on behalf of RMLD with the commissioners or we're trying to establish a commissioner's light association so that
the commissioners can have input to things right as policy people and uh and and not just depend on the the generosity of the general manager to communicate that back to us and maybe to your point it could be implemented through an RMLT policy that
the general manager shall report to the board and get a board approval on whatever position the general manager proposes to take through me. Something like that. What do you think, Paul? I mean, I don't know. I mean, some way to some way to operationalize this. I mean, you want alignment, right? You
want alignment. So, you know, you don't want to be taking a position that's not not even known that's not even we're the local politicians for whatever that's worth. Yeah. And there's five of us. I can completely understand why we're not invited. There's too many of us. Sure. And you go into that room, right? And you leave the general manager and they
we agree to disagree about truck policies and you know, who knows what's going to happen with biomass, right? Um how many bills get to be dead today. It might be alive tomorrow. Leaving biomass aside is the larger principle that the board is the policym we get elected for better or worse to do
do this job. And you know, we should be in the loop at a timely manner. On a on a given session, um there's about 360 bills in the TUE committee. There's about 30 that we pay attention to. Yeah.
Not that we necessarily care about. And when push comes to shove, there's probably 10 that that we end up commenting on one way or another. But, um, to your point, Commissioner, I I we don't have I don't have a problem
letting the GM know, um, to either inform the board, uh, because quite frankly, I'd rather have boards in addition, right, um, send letters to the legislative delegation in support of or against
something that we're for or against. And there have been times when the GM has come to us and said, "Hey, sign this. We want you guys to support us." But other times we don't know anything about like all year this bill was kicking around and I'd never heard of it and I had been involved a few years ago but I had not even heard of it. So that
all it's just this larger point and I think the way to operationalize it is you know it makes sense for you to report and talk to the general manager not to us. I get that and like and the other way around and but for us to have a policy that we currently do not have in our RMLD policies that says there needs to be a feedback loop between the
GM or that the GM shall ask us or we shall then that's up to us to enact that I think but I right okay and to answer your question these are the I believe there's eight. One, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Um, and then the ones where you see twice the the same bills been filed in both the House and the Senate. But those are bills that we have um put a favorable or
an opposition to. Um, and I'm glad to share um if you're interested um what we filed to the legislature on on all of those thinking through how to an alternative
way that might be more consistent. um you know maybe just a recommendation to Annie around how you communicate to your owner um MLPS you know maybe it's a monthly up legislative update or a
quarterly legislative update or something you know emailed to the GMs that they can then pass along to us something that just provides us with general guidance on where your attention is and where our attention be in that space might be some you know I'm I'm
sure other MLPs might benefit from that too. And that it's not really a internal policy. It's part of the service that you cut. I mean in spec you guys are an owner so you also get my updates from the board meetings and I I think that's probably a
good format um to either do quarterly or yeah, you know, just just to keep communication moving. But um I think with the GM it's more if something is important um but I don't I don't know to
to you know commission this point I don't know that something is or isn't more important to you than it is to the general everyone else. So um but letting you know the things that we're watching I think yeah that you're these are things you you're thinking of opposing or
supporting that would be the action plan. Yes. If there's 50 things then because take a position on over but when it specifically is about MLP eligibility for Rex that would seem to be an obvious one. Sure. You know some of them are going to be less obvious but this one would seem to
have been obvious. And then you know to just in general to you know I I like I say I have 30 municipal light plants which is a lot of reps and senators. Um, but in particular the RMLD delegation, every one of your
members is on top of I mean we we keep them informed about everything going on, but they are on top of just about everything and quite frankly reach out to me a lot to say, "Hey, is this something that would be helpful to RMLD if you know we pushed it forward?" So,
um, you're pretty lucky compared to a lot of others where I go in and introduce myself again for the third or fourth time. Makes sense. Yeah, I think we got a good delegation. Thank you again for coming in to to give
us one more question. Sure. Just to follow up on on last month and maybe maybe this is an an email, but John mentioned something last time about the commissions on power purchase agreements of 25 cents a megawatt hour and that was I something I had not really understood
and I think to Vivbec's point of understanding what fees we're paying if we could get a sense of what does that add up to how many PPAs are we paying 25 cents a megawatt hour and do we also pay that when when we have you sell Rex um and then what is the magnitude of
that across a year or the the life of of an agreement. So, it's I could I could follow up with an email is what does that add up to because that was new to me. Um, and then the other one was do when you guys bring PPAs to us, are are there fees paid to ENE by the power
producer or commissions of any kind that the power producer is paying or is paying ENE? Only the settlement fee. Okay. So, that it's not like you're the real estate broker. that bad analogy, but for right you're not bro you're not they're not paying you to be a broker for their
power in some way or you know you're doing the analysis making the recommendations the negotiation of whether it's a good deal or a bad deal. Yes. And then trying to drive the price down to what's fair um compared to what we see in the market
and then put it out to um the the munis for purchase or not. Okay. Yeah. So, so, so Gwen and Paul, I think instead of looking at the full contract, if we can get a one pager that says this is what we've been spending. So, I just wanted to be very specific like, you
know, rather than saying, okay, read the contract, you know, give me a one pager, it says this is what we pay for in terms of EN services going historically. and Paul in terms of what we may going be do going forward you
know just help us understand if there are any variations going forward so okay so just to go back to our plans I mean the budget I mean the budget has so much detail you know so it'll be easy for us maybe you're on the cab I'm on the board what if we get together and write an
email and cohhere on what it is we're asking for that it's I'm asking for something you're asking for something and I mean not that we speak for the whole board but that would be an organized way to send an email back. Sounds good.
Okay. Anything else? Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, guys. Appreciate what you guys do in the legislature. That's
that's that's an un unhared t right from anybody. True. Thank you very much. We love that. Right. Yeah. Um, okay. I think we're moving along to IR update. Megan, I have Megan listed here.
Yes. Yeah. Okay. Uh I think we were scheduled to do the update on the customer segmentation study that we did. Uh and then I'll do
some you know customer program updates. Uh the first one is segmentation study. Uh in the spring we um h had a uh professional survey company
uh to help us uh carry out a survey. This is the first segmentation study we that I know we've ever done. It's here. Sorry, we were just It's here. It's here. No, I don't. This is not in
the materials are not our iPad. It was in the package that was sent. It was in the package that was sent to us. But not in this one. Not on this one. Okay, that's fine. Sorry for being distracted. Go ahead.
Um, the reason to do the segmentation study is when I got here, I hear two kind of train of thought. One is, oh, you know, we need to do more social media posting. we you know we we we need
to take on all these digital ways of communicating to the customers which is the trend now and then I hear the other thought is you know especially for the customer service group what they deal with is always people who come in in person or who call and you know they
need help with some very basic services and they may not use internet they may not use email they don't look at the websites and Another kind of a similar sort of source of of of kind of along the same line is our specialists when
they get calls uh about rebates and programs you can tell they don't look at the website. So basically our specialists are repeating the information on the websites over the phone to the customers. So that kind of prompted me to think like okay what who
are our customers you know who are we dealing with you know what what's what what what are the characterist that will help us to actually engage our customers more effectively so this stud is really for our internal analysis so I'm not sharing the whole result to a public
meeting um but I want to kind of walk us through like you know the segments what they mean what you know what are the implications and also have a little bit of summary discussion of some of the findings of the uh of the survey uh in terms of you know customer attitudes or
choice or preference in certain uh topics. So this is what um just so I can maybe restate. So the goal of this study is just to understand how to better engage with customer and ensure that they're getting the information they need and and uh able to take advantage of all the
different programs. Yes. Okay. to uh we want to kind of uh modify or develop our marketing strategy based on the insight we gain from this study on who our customers are and what they're looking for. Right. Got it. Uh we sent out 19,000 surveys that we
have emails for, but this is all residential. We got 966 valid responses. I don't know if I can take a show of hands. How many of you did the survey? I think I did. Oh.
you think my wife I hope she did I not sure um the uh so statistically the 5% response rate is really good so we're happy with that um the segmentation the
definitions here but I already kind of explained you know the really the ideas uh to understand you know the types of uh customers that we have but it's not to label our customers I I want to emphasize that is just really understand you know the demographics and then their
tendency toward electricity toward technology toward utility service and I'll explain that more. Um um I'll just go over demographics a little bit. I think this is not news to you but I just want to compare that with the the census
that's the American community survey. So we did do that analysis to compare with you know the the proportions of each each um demographic group and it matches very well with some you know small exceptions which always happens with the
sample. Um, and then the sort of the the you know the the race, the education level, whether you own a home, you know, your your personal relationship and whether you're employed and all that. That's all matching the census result
with the the only kind of difference is that median age uh for our survey respondents, the median age is 58. It's on the older side because our respondents are people who are responsible for paying for electricity.
So the the census also accounts for children and you know young young people. So so that's the only difference. You have a No, I I that's me. I responded. Yeah.
Recognize ourselves. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so how we did the So the survey is long then maybe that's why you didn't uh it takes understand what you I'm sorry don't understand what you were showing
at this part. Yeah, I I was trying to say um the sur takes about 30 minutes and what I'm showing here are the questions that are leading to the algorithm to to assign each respondent to a segment.
So there are two groups of questions. Uh one is customers attitude toward technology. So there are maybe eight statements there where you would um on a rate of one to four you know you strongly agree you agree you strongly disagree you disagree the on the scale
and then the second group of questions uh customers attitude toward electricity and utility service. Okay so so these are the questions and you had to score one to four on each of these and you select whether you strongly agree or agree. Yeah I would have known. Yeah, it's a it
takes a while to to finish the survey. So I applaud those 966 people who finished it. Um so that's how the so that's why we hired the survey company. They did this all online and they did the back end segmenting people but then
we did all the an uh the other analysis in house because of the cost concern. I mean we have the analysts and they do a great job. So um so this is the segments that is the direct result of the survey. Um don't like think too much about the
names of these segments but I want to just kind of uh get you to the takeaways. The first one you know what what we call early adopters. They are more like the sort of them more likely to have children. They are they are very
techsavvy. They do all the you know the the the EVs the solars or not not so much the EV solar but they do the like you know uh any kind of the uh rebate program they would participate this this is like the easiest sort of segment of
the customer that you know it's easier to engage with them so that's that's the part that is almost like a captured audience and then the I'll group two of them in the second takeaway that's called interested explorers and techsavvy savers They are almost like
the kind of the two end of the spectrum where the interest explorers they are inherently they want to be good to the environment. They want to do good but they are very afraid of technology. They're not techsavvy. So the other side
the end of that is you know they they're very good at technology. they tend they want to save money but they may not you know if if you say it bluntly they may not care about environment that much. So these are the but there's potential to
kind of combine the sort of the different uh objectives for these two groups of customers. So that's the second group second takeaway they are the biggest potential for us to engage them more. And then the other two groups
uh the comfort keepers are basically you know people who are happy where they are and then they really you know don't want to engage with the utilities too much. They're happy with their rate they're you know happy with the service they're there and the satisfied supporters they
are a little more so they tend they tend to be older the u median age is like 70 they tend to be women and then they tend to not be able to use technology. So we feel you know this third takeaway is that we if we do more focused outreach
we can maybe help these customers to be engaged a little more. Um then we compared with the national stats um in early adopters which are the easiest sort of easiest group to engage we're actually 10 points higher like 10%
higher than national average and in the sort of a little more challenging to engage groups which is the last uh two that I said the we have actually 10% less so that's kind of the overall picture of our customers in terms of
segments Does that make sense? I know it's all new concepts and then the words are a mouthful. No, I I've seen things like this before, so to me it makes sense. I guess the the question is okay, so what are we doing with it? Right. Right. So that's the part I cannot speak at the public meeting.
We're doing more detailed analysis, try to, you know, actually kind of identify the customers in each group and then try to tailor our messaging and even like the method of communications, right? with people who are not techsavvy. Maybe we should go back to more traditional
way of communications. We should go back to door hangers or you know actual mail them things um um to or we can't talk about that. I mean I I certainly don't want to talk about individual exactly that's where where it gets tricky that I don't want
strategy again each of those be something that talk about. So we are we're we're in the process of developing the the strategies. Okay. The marketing strategies She can't talk about it. She's not prepared to talk about it, I think. Is that more
accurately saying she can't talk about it in a public meeting? Yeah. The the specific way we're doing the analysis, I just I cannot share that at a public meeting. It's at the you know, it's related to want to sit in a private meeting and talk about it. Right. Right. Right. Right. I just want to know what do we do? What
is the strategy of the pie? Yeah. To Paul's point, we are developing a strategy. So at some point when we have you know more kind of a a settled change of strategy I think we can share that again but again then like we we we
we don't want to be saying oh here are this group there are those group we we really want to be careful about that but in our kind of a the I want to add some subtlety in how we actually messaging uh
the you know the the program that we're So, if that makes sense. So, this is going to sound crude, but 80% of the people don't really that that's what I'm getting is that the top there's a top 5% 80 155 rule of
pretty much anything. 5% really go for it. 15 Yeah. 80%. Yeah. You know, so 20% that's an old that's an old number. We're a little bit better than that, right? That's 100%.
Well, I know. But the old rules 805, right? 8020, right? We're better than 8020, right? Much better. We're by 4060. And how do we care that? I'm going to be blunt. How do you care? Right? You're going to penetrate the group that doesn't want to be talked to quite
frankly. The green is early adopter. The blue is interested explorers. So, so to me those and then maybe a little bit of the techsavvy they're techsavvy like to your point you've got 80 a little less
80% of the population who probably respond. So the question is just how do you engage that better? Okay actually is a problem of it's like so that it's it's in inverted like so you actually have to target only 20%. Right. you know, or I think you're Yeah.
I mean, you may never get them. So, maybe they're just the, you know, it's in the newsletter. Fine. But these folks are the ones that you want to say, "Listen, they're they might take the opportunity and they might be interested in these programs. How do we how do we make sure that they are aware and know what to do and have the right
level of support to get it done?" Yeah. But this perils uh very much. We the climate advisory committee with RMLD partnered a couple years ago and did a back to year-to-year survey on energy use and
adoption of heat pumps and um and and so I think that kind of data and the kind of data you have I think pairs together if if we can understand that people who have oil or natural gas for heat and central
heating for air conditioning. That's a good opportunity for heat pumps because you've already got the air movement system in your house and it's just a matter of the cost value of switching from oil to heat pumps or gas to heat
pumps. But there's and that makes up a vast majority of the population. But then that's subdivided into these categories. how many of those receive information particular ways you're trying to reach out. So pairing the two the two data sets together you know there's there's a a
large part of the community which would are could be adopters if we can get the right information to them in in a particular way that understands that. Um and and yes, some of it's technical and and might um be hard for some people to understand
and other people who want to see information particular way. So how do we get information to those groups? Yeah. So is it like next month, two months that we would have the strategies you think by the by segments?
I would say probably in the next couple of months. Yeah. Okay. We're we're still looking looking through the the the detailed question. There are a lot there are a lot and I'm sharing the results of some of the questions that we already uh finished analyzing because like you know
a thousand responses and it's kind of every question almost every question has like subp parts of you know information that you need to kind glean from. Um but anyhow so other than the segments these are some of the specific questions that
are included in the survey that I thought was interesting to share just so that we are all kind of on the same page of thinking about. I think I think this whole presentation is really I want to present the the the kind of the numbers
the fact almost and then I think it's upon all of us to to to kind of figure out a way how we can better engage our customers because it's not easy. So I want to kind of pre preset that. I think the data is helpful. I just want
to be conscious of time. Like I think the marketing team is is kind of their job is to look at the data, look at the segments and and say what the strategy should be. Right. Right. But it's not only the marketing team. I think the whole
specialist team is also on they will have to be on this because the marketing team is basically packaging the information the messaging and finding and and and implementing the specific communication channels but it's the specialist team that actually come up
with the specific like content of that messaging. Um anyhow I'm going to go quickly here. This one is just to show where our customers are uh finding their information about electricity. It's
interesting that um the majority finds it on internet like Google search. Um for RMLD it's about 40%. So we can do better. That's one of our goals. Maybe you know we want them to be our you know source of information on electricity and
you know power. Um a lot of them do also turn to their their friends and family for information. That's also interesting. Um the next one is EV adoption. So the chart on the upper left that shows uh the percentage of customers for each segment um whether
they would consider EV or not. Over half says yes, we want to buy EV. But if you look at the up lower right chart, it says if you buy EV, what kind of EV do you would you consider battery EV? the overwhelming majority said no. So they
would want to get either a plug-in EV or a gas hybrid. So that is a very interesting uh insight. I thought you see how tall those columns are. So the bottom right ones for the various
types of customer. The far left says no battery electric vehic. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But what is Sorry, can you just So they would versus a plugin. Yeah. They would not buy a battery only
EV. They want to buy a hybrid or plugin. Hybrid. So hybrid. Yes. Okay. I got confused about the plug-in part. The plugin is like so the gasoline hybrid is you charge the battery with the gasoline. It's electric only or hybrid is the question.
Correct. Yeah, that's right. Basically, I hope people unders like to this conversation like that the the people taking the survey actually understood all those distinctions you know it's described in this sorry that's why it's taking so long the next one is solar adoption
um so the again the first chart on the upper um left that's whether you are interested in installing solar um the majority actually are not interested did. Um, and then the one on the lower
right on asking, you know, we do have this credit program. If you send electricity back to RMLD, you get a credit. they are uh I would say you know over half are aware that they can do that but they're not you know that kind
of contrasts with the first chart where even though they know the only way you can sell back is to install solar at at the moment but they are not interesting in installing solar. So it's just a little bit of a do we get any data on like those who are
interested but have not done it yet what their barrier is? Um I'm curious not not in that specific way. No, we have questions about you know how how
worried you are about you know the cost of electricity. We have general questions on that but not the the the way uh when we hire the survey company the the the questions are pretty much preset. This is a nationally used uh survey so we have we haven't got to that
part. Yeah. I I just it's it's rates first rate on return on your investment, right? If you can afford it, okay, if it's borderline our rates are cheap enough where with a 30-year payback. Yeah. Yep.
Not worth it to me. And that's probably what you would say in your survey or maybe that is what you curious like the the Yeah. a broad perspective because if if it's like you could have 30% more adoption if you could just figure out a better rebate program or if you could figure out like
a Yeah. But you're paying Yeah. And and that's for that to go on the backs of other rate bears. Right. That's the our question and I don't I don't have a proposed Yeah. solution that avoids that. But I'm I guess I'm just trying to understand and
maybe there are other barriers. Maybe they just don't know where to start. You know, I mean, 1930s home with widely spaced rafters. Yeah. Which 300y old oak trees around it. Again, if we're going to talk about
personal experience, I when I first I don't have solar right now, but when I first started looking at solar, I called several solar companies and they're like, "Oh, we don't we don't work with Freddy. We don't work at RMLD." And I I did enough research to figure out that that's not true. They just don't think it's it's going to pay back, so they
don't work with us. But people there's information that would be helpful for folks who actually do want to pursue that that might and I think sometimes people will do it thinking they're not going to convert their house to heat pumps and they say oh so I'm just offsetting my existing
bill which is small convert your house to heat pumps now you've got a large electric bill now the offset can be can be much greater so right and this is the last one uh survey question I want to share it's on peak demand response months. Um, if you look
at the chart on the left, I want you to remember this chart. It says, you know, o uh 40 at least 40% uh over 40% of customers say that they have reduced during peak times. Just
remember that they believe they have. And then the get your actual data when you get the smart smart you get the plot. Uh the charts on the right is also interesting because this is related to like the AMI meters or installing all
the to rates we will be implementing. Uh I want to you know talk about the one on the bottom. uh actually there's uh 40% of them uh would would allow RM modd to adjust their usage if there's an incentive. I think that's encouraging.
uh we can also like you can interpret that statement in different ways but I overall I think that's an encouraging thing because I think with demand response as different from EV and solar EV and solar you have to invest upfront and demand response is more of a something you you you you take action
without the financial burden per se almost um so that's that's uh that's the kind of general um takeaway so um in terms the updates on the customer programs. I'll do the first
one. This is the So we um we're entering a new age almost, right? So we're looking at our data. It's no longer like monthly. When we do monthly bill, our data turns into millions and millions of rows of data. So we need new tools. So
that um internally that took some learning curve for the IT department to actually allow us to use the new tools. So we I think we finally got it sorted out maybe two weeks ago. So this is a very preliminary result but it's still very telling. It's very interesting. So
that's why I decided to share a little bit. Uh earlier 40% customer believed they saved this they they reduce energy use during peak to hours and we look at all our peak uh shred the peak the peak alerts program. uh we look at all I think it's uh 2900
customers who signed up for peak alerts uh over the last year from you know July last year to August this year only 5% actually on on the whole reduced usage. Can I just say I think this is the first time I've ever seen this analysis done.
Maybe it's been done but it's great. It's amazing to be able to see Yeah. and actually look at what people are doing. Yeah. Yeah. Very excited about this. Yeah. But even if you didn't know what they said, to actually know what's going on out there is great. Yeah, we got 5% survey return. So it's a 5%
a coincidence. 5% a perfect percentage. So I'm showing three like what's the mag sorry? No. No. But what is the m if you were to say the magnitude of that 5%. Did did that add up to two megawatts or
no no one megawatt? It's maybe uh a few it's 145 customers who reduced maybe two kilowatt hours. So that's what you're looking at negligible. So it's that
just to be clear. So these are people who signed up for the large the math is that a third of a megawatt or did I understand the math wrong? A third of a megawatt hour. Not even. Not even. So, so Megan, like so when you send out
an alert saying don't use load. So, so like what we would do is you don't do laundry, you don't charge your car. Yeah. It's very small. You got to turn off the AC. Yeah. But I think we also should look at how
are we communicating that because just sending an email like exactly people just delete their email. That's why because we Yeah. And also because we don't didn't have the data. So the ideal way I would think is the same way we when we do the as when we do the
commercial PDR where we calculate the savings we give them an incentive we share the in savings for the residential customer because we didn't have the data at this level. We couldn't come up with a reasonable incentive. You know if you save two kilowatt hours do I give you
what five cents? you know, it's it's hard to to to to get to them. So, so this is a start. I just want to share this and also just quickly um the first one on the left, they have a EV charger and they also installed solar. They did
reduce during the called peaks. So, this is like when we called for three to four hours. This is not just what the one hour the one hour we're still in the process of doing that analysis. They reduced but it's very small. It's like one kilowatt hour. So, you know, they probably aren't using EV chargers anyway
during those hours because that's why you don't see the reduction. It's already, you know, already in there. And then the one on the on the top on the right, um, this this customer doesn't have anything. But, interesting enough, we don't we don't know if it's a coincidence because they actually
shifted their peak. It's a small thing. The yellow line is the the the the actual usage. their their baseline usage the the peak is at hour ending 18 but because we called the peak and they
shift their peak to our ending 14. So we don't know if it's a conscious effort or not but we we're trying to kind of understand what what that means. So so just Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. How many of your customers are time of
use customers? Uh maybe uh 500 a few hundred less than less than a thousand. Okay. Yeah. No, because I mean I I'm looking at Dave and I'm saying okay if you're a time of use customer then you're basically even if you're
shifting your load I mean you're doing that anyway, right? I mean as a time of use customer you're so so there's no baseline change. I mean if you're you're not compliant. Thank you. That's exactly the second point I'm trying to make. I mean I I I
I'm in that category. So like I'm saying even if I do anything, it's really noise because it's really I'm shifting all my load to later. Well, if you shift your load, but if it's outside the peak window, you're
still you're still creating savings. That's you know, even though the total kilowatt hours may still be the same. Yeah. But but in terms of my behavior on a day with or without that message is going to be the same, right? because I've shifted the load always to after
hours. Well, so that's what I'm saying like if we implement the kind of all out like opt out time of use which means everyone is on it unless you ask us not to be on it. Everyone is on that will be you know more likely to behave like Dave like
okay I'm just going to use my charger during off peak already. We already do we already think like that. Yeah. So right. Yeah. So these the the active demand response will work in tandent with the
time of use rates when we implement it. I plug in my driver. Maybe you did. Yeah. Yep. That's seven kilowatts. You're not supposed to tape. Yeah. Sorry.
That's me by the way. No, I this is from memory, but 10 years ago when we had I think it was 400 hot water heaters that we could control with a broadband connection and and there was a guy here who could hit a button at the peak and
would shut off whatever fraction of those 400 hot water heaters that might have happened to have been on at that time. And he claimed that when he did that, he could see demand drop a half a megawatt. That's memory. It could be wrong, but it it it sort of makes sense. Like if you think a 100 hot water
heaters that are pulling 5,000 watts, that's how many is that? That's 500,000. That's that's a half a megawatt. So if a quarter of them were on happened to be on and he was able to control, he shut 100 off. He just he just shed a half a
megawatt with 400 timers on electric hot water heaters. And then we got rid of it. But because because one of the copper copper lines the the connections that Yeah. the broad Yeah. broadband connection was copper. That was problematic.
It wasn't Yeah. It was falling apart. Nobody was keeping up with making sure people had their Wi-Fi updated or whatever. Then one of them I think one of them sparked out and somebody complained this thing. I have a fire my house burned down. That didn't happen. But there was that was the the worry of
having stuff in people's houses. Yeah. And so there was a decision taken to just pull them all out. Yeah. So that's a good point because the that's why we participate in the uh MOX connected homes program. Customers elect
to be uh to allow um Mick via virtual peaker to control their load directly similar to that. Yeah. Yeah. They sign there's like a seven page of terms and whatever happens is Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that it would always seem to me though that
simply promoting even if it's not controlled by you give people the timer and give them 200 bucks to put it in or pay for the electrician to put it in and say look please set this thing to 4 to8 and that it's never on 4 to8 because nobody needs to heat their water between basically
right or if they're willing to do it you're going to give them well you you you're always running your sink prime time when you're home yeah I know 3 to 3 to 6 first thing you do is you wash a dish rightower you're taking a shower while you washing your kids hands. So, well, but those who would be willing to
agree to it if they were give them something that I'll give you a hundred bucks or get I'll give you 10 bucks a month off your bill. But, you know, that's never going to go on between four and eight. Well, I'll be proposing that in a way, right? Because we'll get you're going to get a better rate. Yeah. Not your rates.
You're not getting you not writing a check to somebody. Correct. Presumably, the bill will be lower and y once we get the you know the AMI meters in, you'll be able to see. Got it. Oh, I see. Just I see. So to tell them to to figure out how to do it. Yeah. And that they'll figure out how to do it. Is your point. Okay.
And if but but this would be this is such the big thing if you can somehow get people to put the timer in. Well, that would be a piece of it, right? Work together. Yeah. Yeah. So, so Paul, so the AMI is getting implemented this year, right? Gonna talk about that in a couple.
Yeah. I'll be quick. This is the last slide, I think. Yeah. Uh just quick get pump weather relation program we have 88 completed this year 80 in the pipeline and the zero interest loan it's a little more involved process right now we have
three in the pipeline um and then we had just had the EB show in August uh we did the whole thing our marketing team is really great we organized the whole thing we invited we had four dealers there brought in eight
vehic EV uh EVs Uh we estimate about 150 people who attended. I actually went there and yeah there were a lot of people because we did it um across from the farmers market in Wormington and then immediately after the event the
the town of women actually asked us our market like can we plan the next year already. So I think it was well received. Yeah. Uh and then coming back to demand response. I want to kind of update on the customer portal. Customer portal is the place where um so we you
know we have the MDM with our hourly data and the portal draws the data from the MDM and then when the customer signs up for the portal they can see their own usage their own hourly usage. So the chart here is a customer that I know that allowed me to share the data. Um
you can you can see the you know you can clearly see the the peak you know that was June 24th that's likely to be the capacity peak day of this year and then it was very low in in the second circle
because that person was on vacation you know I just put the on vacate you can tell they're on vacation. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's very interesting. Um I just want to kind of show this to kind of connect the dots where you know we want to do demand response, we want to do the the hourly data, we want to kind
of change behavior, want to do all this will be tied together and we're really um uh um promoting the customer portal because that will be a very cost-effective way for us to do the shadow building which I kind of explained before.
Who can do the customer portal? any customer you you can just go on the go on the website and uh register your own account. Yeah. Okay. I think that's all tech people know about that.
They will sign up. Um great. Thank you, Megan. everything else. Um, Craig, NEPA conference update for us. Um, thank you for being willing to share.
Yeah. Uh, NEPA conference uh was up in Burlington, Vermont. Um, Ryan and I got up there early and we did scuba diving on some wrecks in Lake Champlain. Um, it's uh dark and muddy, but that we're
used to that being New England divers and u it was it was fun. How deep is it? Does that really throw the deep pull trans? It it can be very deep, but where we do we was only 45 feet. So, not not very
deep. Um, and it was a lovely weekend except for the one hour when we were actually on a boat on Lake Champlain, then it rained and so that was that was a disappointment. But Pam, Dave, and I were were commissioners in in in
attendance. um and just staff time and availability and whatever. We didn't have any other representatives from RMLD, although RMLB is generally well represented at these events and I hope will be going forward. Cab members, uh
Vic and Jason. Um and that's anybody else, right? Just two. Uh Jason received distinguished service award where he was called to the stage and I think embarrassed greatly for two to three minutes. It was very hard for him to take uh take praise
but he was uh he was recognized for his service to Dan Bruce u and deservedly so. um program highlights for me. Others may may decide um what things were important to them. But uh the talk about load
shifts, you you sort of mentioned it a little bit here. Uh that as we go into further adoption of EVs and heat pumps, um summer peak may move to winter peak and the implications of that in terms of how where we get power and and how do we
sustain that. Uh there was discussions of cyber threats which was very good. uh and then a lot about heat pump and heat pump adoption. Uh some other topics um I think are topics that they want us to know about. I don't think they're topics
that we want to we want would get as much value from if they were shaped with a different perspective. Um but that's those were my highlights. Um the Massachusetts uh Lake Commissioners
Association had its meeting uh near the lake shed. No one knew where the lake shed was, but indeed I have a photograph with our sign next to the lake shed. It turns out it's a hallway and we stood around for about an hour, 24 commissioners u about 6 to8 MLPS chatted
about what uh our goals and interests were uh through the end of this year and into next year. Um uh I'm hoping next year we can get chairs and that will be an awesome improvement for those that were standing in the hallway. Um talking to some people about maybe
that. So it's just a sign in a that's just to say. So, uh, other people that went and comment, uh, I Yeah. No, no. I a big shout out to Ry and to Jeanjac for hering cats and
actually he did most of the hering, right? Ray did most of the hering to pull everyone there. So, thank you for that. Uh, and Paul, the slides for this are available. There were like about six or seven presentations that were that are
posted on the NEPAS. Okay. If you don't have them, I'm happy to share them with you. I've downloaded them. I'm happy to share them with you. Next provided some information on rates. Uh there was some stuff on heating uh
electric heating uh and cyber security and all that. So I'm happy to if if you don't have them, I'm happy to share all of those with you. Uh there was one on SMRs, nuclear SMRs. Uh I I I I think the main takeaway for me was that um
it's good to know that the past winter was mild compared to what we've had in the past. So it's just good to be aware of that uh in case you know this year is going to be a little colder and whatever that means. Uh ISO New England has a huge battery amount of battery capacity
in the interconnection queue. So I don't know how that works out because I mean that means there are plans but I don't know if they work out and what that means for the resiliency for the grid. Uh so that that's something that came out in one of the presentations
and um yeah and and there was a presentation by a guy called John Blair and he talked about pricing for time of use the different ways of pricing. So you you
can look at that presentation and see so it's like he he could be a good resource to talk to. It's the the company is called energy and environmental economics. E3. Yeah, I think they did at another event as well. Maybe another
joined the ranks of general managers again. He was a GM someplace. He left. He was he was in maybe Marblehead. Yeah, Marvel. That's right. He's going to Marble Head. He's going to Marblehead, but I think he's still I'm sure he can talk about it. Sure. Yeah. So, so that that's a presentation
that it's worth looking at. Okay. Yeah. on that one. Um I talked to him a little bit about it is that he was pushing seasonalbased rate structures which to try to get on top of the winter peak versus summer
peak. Um, and I and I think some of that projection since the data he would have to draw on it would have had to have been, you know, a year or two old from now, but then making projections as to what's going to be in in 2030, 2035,
2040. Um, I guess they're making their best projection, but I think that's still projection and we need to track to see if those trends follow out. But I felt he was pushing seasonalbased
pricing too soon. Time of use I think still will be effective. No, no. I think my my main takeaway was we need to have a dynamic mechanism for pricing, right? Yeah. And and just like pricing on anything else like nowadays people are saying this is my price but I'll vary my
discount. So I fixed price but I'll give you a different discounts at different under different conditions. So so there's different ways to do pricing, right? So uh it's just that rather than a fixed price, people have to be thinking about dynamic
pricing and I I just look at that as an example and I look at that as a teaching moment saying you know if this is what you want to do this is what you get and to your point maybe it's not optimal for some people right. Thanks Ray appreciate that.
Um, okay. Um, Paul. Okay. So, I I'm expecting, you know, that we put out to bid the So, we we put out to bid for uh the AMI meters devices themselves. We have a vendor tanalyst.
We put out to bid to have them installed. Uh we worked with a consultant to develop a budget price for that. the budget to install the 26,000 and we we're only going to have the contractor
install the singlephase residential. Not kind of slap them inside. Not really, but you know, quick hits that way. 26,000 of those. We budgeted a million came in at two million. So 100% over
what our budget was. So million bucks is a pretty big number. So, uh, what was the difference there? What were the cost drivers like a couple? So, the biggest difference and we I I worked with the I um peel the onion back
pretty far today with the vet with the consultant that we used and with Nick from our meter department and it it revolves around the prevailing wage basically is what it comes down to. So in Massachusetts because we are a
government entity we have to pay the you the union rates. Did we not know that or assume that in our It's my question as well. And I know that. Oh, yeah. So, anytime we hire
somebody to do something, you know, any even just a labor type thing, you guys would know this. We have to use the, you know, it's it's But that would be in the bid process. It should have would he be? Yeah. It should be clarified in the bid
is correct. When you're doing a bid like that, you have to go up for three different bids and it has to be stated uh because you need a bid sheet every single week that has to be submitted to the process. I I think it just needs to be in the
scope when you put a bid for any labor, you have to state that it's Massachusetts prevailing wages to be used. Yes. Because wage changes and so and then usually that get you request that from the state to provide you it's very high level and you give them a bunch of different job types with rates
and you just provide it regions of the same regions and it comes back and everybody uses the same process. I didn't understand that we did the wrong bid process. I understood that we we did estimate wait let me just finish what I was saying I don't think we budgeted the
correct way if we if we assumed well we we should we should just understand if if that's the case. Yeah, that's really the difference that feels like it's something. I guess I'm going back to to your point like is there like a janitorial rate? Is there
every Yeah, there's every single there's every single level. So, we're looking at basically alignment, right? To me, licensed electrician or meter tech, but I don't know. So, I don't
I don't think the utility stuff is in there. It's gonna be like like a 103 electrician. Yeah. Journeyman electrician say come coming in. Right. Like in Wilmington, we went out to get our cooling towers done
and you have to pay prevailing wage and I'm calling around looking for different vendors. And the guy says, "Oh yeah, I can be there Friday." And he called me Thursday and said, "I can't come out because you guys need prevailing wage and we don't pay that." I think there's like there's limited exceptions like it's familyowned
business and it's like a family member. There's like little tiny exceptions to get around it but not for something this big. Um it it pro it it could have been estimated and maybe the I don't know maybe the number of hours is different or the number of work or maybe the vendor didn't supply
or if they got a budgetary quote just to be able to kind of get something in the budget. Maybe that was misunderstood. Yeah. But maybe it was but maybe it was faith. Maybe so at the end of the day it came in at two million bucks. Yeah. For whatever reason it came in at two million. The
budget number may have been apparently wasn't good because it was a million bucks up. Two million. Remember that number. So we we Nick and I started talking about so how are we going to do this? And if we use inter and that's what I'm intending
to do use internal help 30,000 meters 600k 26,000 meters 2 million bucks sounds like a pretty easy decision to me right it's like a 300%
it's just time it's time so I that was one of the things I asked Nick about so we were going you know the apparently the way the proposal went out they were going to be done in four months. Nick estimates conservatively that we'll get it done in
about 12. So there's, you know, a little bit of time, eight months, but again, it's uh 2 million 1.4 saved, right? Am I doing that math right? The people who bid on this, that's
again, that's a lot of dough. So, and we were talking the original bid. Sometimes we're going to get up to these meters. They're going to be Oh, absolutely. And so, so I don't know if that was part of the bid. So,
our part of our process is we're going to have to have an electrician, right? Whether it's an in-house and or is when I got to go replace the meter socket, depending on what you're touching, right? You could own the whole thing, right? I I I could own the riser. I
could own it to the to. So, that's when we got to talk to the wiring inspector in the town is what the he what will they allow as well. Now, I don't know if we got that deep in into that contract into this. No, I don't I don't think so because you don't know how many houses you're going
to come up along into where you could have problems, but you you are going to have Right. Right. You know, we did it in a few years ago. Yeah. We didn't go to an AMI AMI. We went to an AMR and I don't frank I don't remember what the percentages were but not huge.
Right. Right. We're just that continued scene and Helga might even be a little bit more problematic than say this area because you're a lot closer to the ocean. So you got the salt there corroding you know the met metal meter sockets. It's just yeah it's just you're there's
no room right that the socket goes in or out or you're replacing the meter socket. If I'm replacing the meter socket, I'm replacing um you know up to the weather head or going depending on what the problem is. You know, anytime that there's a problem,
the solution to it could be partially on the customer, it could be partially on Yeah, that that that's the other component of it. What are we what are we going to take ownership for? And that because we're the one changing the meter so you know the customer is responsible,
right? It's their meter socket. Where where are we going to go? You know, because we're driving this to be changed. And if it is deteriorated, you know, paying someone a bill, oh, I'm changing your meter, by the way. Here's a $4,000 bill that you have to pick up, right? You tell the customer, "Your meter socket's in trouble. We're not going to touch
that meter right now, but you got to get that thing fixed." Yeah. I mean, there's other Yeah. I mean, that's the Because we don't want I mean, frankly, I don't want to be putting my hands on a customer problem because then I You own it. Exactly. So the guys who are going to be out doing this work, this is
what they do all all the time. So when they come up to a meter socket that looks like it could be problematic, is that what the vendor was going to do too? Like with with this price, were they going to accept what were the exclusions for what they weren't going to do?
So I mean I didn't read it. I cannot imagine that a c that a contractor who's going to bring people in from who knows where is going to accept responsibility for a dog meter socket in writing. You know what I mean? They just they will
run from it faster than we would run from it because I mean if you do the math it's 80 bucks a meter which doesn't sound like a lot if they were doing them all right. I mean into two million is around8 $80 $768. Yeah. I mean, so that doesn't sound like
a lot if they're really doing all of them, but if yeah, if they're walking away from a third of them or a half of them because So they their number was, as you say, say 80 bucks. Nick was figuring that ours would be more on the order of like
60. So over 30,000 meters. That's I mean, we're talking real money. Yeah. Right. So is there more analysis that's going to be done? Is that are you making a recommendation?
So we so my I I believe that it's my decision and we are going to use our employees to do that and the justification if you will is that huge cost savings like 1.4.
So what's the when will it start and what's the So we have to get the before we can start we have to get the interface. So there's it's kind of a two-part thing, right? We have to make sure that we have a communication network that is going to allow for that. So until we get that until we get that squared away and
tested, we're not going to start slapping meters in because we start putting these new meters in. We're not going to have an ability to read. So we we just we're having that conversation today about we are not there yet with the um the building
with the communication piece and billing and building system. That's seems like a good decision. It seems like a pretty easy one to make. What do I know? But it would I think yeah that I mean certainly from from dollar's perspective that makes sense, right?
Yeah. Just maybe maybe next time we can just have an update on based on all the what's the timeline look like because then I think we start with what is the communication but these people. Yeah. So, we're going to have, you know,
a campaign to let the customers know. I just don't know if that's ex or is it starting in six months? Yes. Yeah, that depends on when the integration will happen. Uh, right now the building system is we're just still waiting on that piece. It's there are a
lot of pieces still at I don't know if at some point we can provide update, but right now it's at least monthly I'll be updating and the package all of our programs with a meter with a meter. Um, we
going up. Yeah, we literally talked about that. So now if our employees are going to install the meters, we're literally going to have them have that packet like put on their door. We installed a new meter for you. Here's the information about ABC and D.
Yeah, I will save uh that will save me 20 $22,000 a month for mailing stamps. Oh, so it's the same material that you'll send anyway, but without the blood glue.
Oh, yes. All right. So, that that's all I have. Okay. Okay. Uh, nothing else from an IBM update perspective. Correct. Okay. Oh, the only well that annoying question I asked you,
right? So, David at the at the meeting started asked me if I had thought about the small adjustment to the uh I'll use the word contract and I had thought about it and I'm not interested in changing the agreement.
Okay. And Mr. W was that as a result of legal advice or just So, David, we had we used lawyers to hobble this agreement together. If we want to open up the agreement, we can open up the agreement, but there are set two sets of signatures on that and I'm not
interested in opening it up. Fair to add that language. Yeah, that's fair. I just didn't know if somebody said no, this isn't a good idea for you to do because of the what the content was, but yeah. Um, so let's move on to scheduling then.
Uh, I think we had Erica, was there going to be a change in the November? Yeah. So we we can talk about this offline, but okay, just looking at the poll that I sent out. It seems like we maybe can make one
change, but kind of how it's looking is that Rich can't do Wednesdays, and sorry, Rich can't Yeah, Rich can't do Wednesdays, Bob can't do Thursdays. So I think there was one Tuesday we could do. Um, it's really pretty much everyone couldn't do one of the days, I guess. So
it's maybe we talk offline about that. Um but there is one thing. We do need to schedule a quick meeting next week um any day but Monday for Peter for us to um for you all to approve the one of the bids for the substation and then Peter
can also give you like a little update on where that is before you approve it. Um so can we do that remotely? Yes, that will be all remote. Um quick meeting all remote pretty much anytime works for us.
Um, just whatever works for you all. If you want to do an evening, we can do that. You want to do a morning, you can do that. We could even do No, sorry. Paul's out. Next week, Monday. So, really, the only night I could do is
Wednesday. I'm going to be next week. It's forically just need to do it. It's for bid, right? You don't need the cap. Yeah, I'm sorry. We just need three of the to approve the bid really from the board.
I'm I'm away as well, but if you just just let me know and I can jump on it. And if it's just you think it's just going to be like a five minute meeting. Yeah, just Yeah, we'll send they already did the bid letter, so I'll send you the bid stuff like tomorrow morning and then we get the bid stuff ahead of time. That would be helpful. I didn't look at any
questions, but Okay. So, Wednesday Wednesday is fine with me. Six five. Uh, we could do five. That would be better for you. Well, are you in? If you don't need me, then that's fine. You guys should get three out of five. Five o'clock Wednesday is okay. Yeah, five o'clock Wednesday.
5:00 Wednesday all remote and I will send that. Thank you. maybe a potential executive session for an update on the um
Zoom for on the on the PM search. Okay. And the um contract update. Sure. On the same meeting. On the same meeting. Yeah. So that the two item executive this is for next Wednesday. This would be another time frame. I
can't I can't I could not do that next week. probably the fall of the week. Yes, I agree with you. Like another another something to update the dual tracks and yeah, by then Rich will be call a meeting and we can maybe suggest something. So that would be the week of like in
September three weeks or something. Two, preferably two. Two. Okay. Yeah. Would you want to go I'm just thinking add a meeting onto one of your search committee meetings or would you want to have a separate meeting? Um, I think it would be a whole
separate meeting because it's the it's not the subcommittee. It's I'm thinking like if you did a five o'clock subcommittee like right after you could do a regular like six or seven do two on the same night. Yeah. You guys are pretty booked now. Yeah, we
we we were doing Wednesdays at noon, but maybe uh um so you you you were just saying next week the 24th, October first, but I don't know if that works good for Rich. Um are you still on the call?
Yeah, I think October 1st is okay. It's a Wednesday. Yeah, October 1st is okay for me. Okay. as is the 24th. Okay.
Okay. I could be in transit. Um but see Yeah. Okay. Um on the first coming back from Chicago the 9.4 bid. Yeah. Because we talked to it. So um
that could be virtual whatever is more convenient. Um uh maybe the option both. What would you know six o'clock? So 6 o'clock 101 that will be um two committees updating the board on happenings in executive.
Yes please. And then 924 bid approval all remote. And then I'll circle back. Okay. Um uh
sorry October 1st we said also virtual that can be extended or it could be either or. Okay. Okay. Um, all right. Uh, and so I think that's it for the agenda. We're going to move to
executive session. Uh, you move motion. Yeah. Move that the RMLD Citizens Advisory Board go into executive session pursuant to Mass General Law 164 section 47D
exemption from public records and open meeting requirements in certain instances under the purpose number six to consider the purchase, exchange, lease or value of real property relative to 232 Ash Street in Reading Mass. And
under purpose number three to discuss strategy with respect to collected bargaining for the local IBW 103 union and return to open session for the sole purpose of adjournment. Second. All
in favor? Um move that the arm board of commissioners go into executive session pursuant to master journal laws chapter 164 section 47D exempt from public meeting records and open meeting requirements in certain instances under purpose number six to consider the
purchase exchange lease or uh value of real property relative to 232 Ash Street in Ready Massachusetts and under purpose three to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining for uh with for the local IB EW103 unit
and return to open session for the sole purpose of adjournment. Second. Those in favor. Yes. Reporter. I Okay, thank you. We'll see you in
executive.