Hi G. >> Thanks for that. >> Sure. I'm not I not sure quite what happened before. I couldn't find the link. >> Well, and the date changed. >> Yeah, I I I think I changed half of it. Maybe not the whole thing, but I'm glad
I caught it in time. >> Yep. and got the word to us so we can get you in time. >> Yeah. How are you? >> Very good. How about yourself? >> Good. Long day. >> I'll be glad when it's like the day of >> long days. Yeah.
>> I'll second that. >> But it sounds like you're making progress on the grant stuff. >> Definitely. Yeah. It's we're working on it. >> That'll come up in the meeting. >> It will. It will. And uh and
you and Matteo, I'm just curious, you and Matteo checked in about the terms thing. >> Yes. Yes. >> That was so interesting. >> It really was. And in relative to that thing, an article in the warrant that there be money put aside for
digitization. >> Yeah. >> This is a perfect example of the merit of digitizing all the town annual reports. >> Yeah. He texted me. He said like that should be the first thing. >> Yep. Yep. >> I mean it was really interesting. I
don't know if he he told you but we had a planning board meeting on Monday and Leslie just happened to be in attendance and so I was cheering because Nathan wasn't there and so I congratulated Steve on another term and I welcomed um
Tom, you know, saying that you'll be a full member in a couple months and Matteo was like, "Oh no, he's a member as soon as he gets sworn in. And then I said I I always started July 1st and I know that I had town meeting changed to school committee terms
because and so Leslie was there and she confirmed the change and she said I know before that happened. So somewhere maybe in the 90s the select board voted to you know change it to July 1st and when we ended that meeting it seemed like a you
know when Matt said a select board policy is not sufficient. It's a town meeting vote that's required. And so when we left the meeting was like, "Oh, so it's right after you get sworn in and I got home and I I called Rita because I know Rita really would prefer not to
make it to July 1st and she was very excited and then she was not very excited when she found out." >> I guess it's been that it's been that way from my sense forever here. >> Oh yeah. No, I was really quite taken it back with that with that ruling
>> and the town council said I mean it's like really >> yeah it the thing that to your point about digitization what consistently amazes me is how facts sort of become mythical you know it's
like my favorite example is when I was on school committee for years people would reference the Union 28 agreement you know we can only do this because of the Union 28 agreement And several years into my term, I I looked into it, someone else looked into it,
and there was a mention, it was like in the 50s or something, a town meeting that Shootsbury will be joining Union 28. And then the next year there's a mention that we joined Union 28, but there literally is no document that's a Union 28 agreement. So for decades
people were citing this thing that didn't exist, >> you know, and it's like one generation feeds on the next generation. It becomes a thing. >> Yeah. >> It's like >> I'm particularly interested in it because I see the website as a place to provide documentation to be referred to
directly and concretely. So >> you know, my sense of the digitization would be to get at at least the town annual reports from forever. Oh yeah, >> they're all in hard copy in Leslie's
office and we've got them online and they're OCR so they're searchable from 2015 on. But you know, >> yeah, >> that's something like this that happened in 2011 >> with reference to what happened in 1974.
>> Yeah. >> Well, yeah. So, we can switch gears to our our business. >> Oh, yeah. But uh so I'll call us to order at 702 and welcome Greg and Nate. Greg, it's good to see you again. >> Good to see you as well. >> How you doing?
>> Yeah, sorry I missed last time. Um the long COVID recovery is like >> it's really up and down. Um uh I think the last time we had a meeting, I had a migraine. >> Yeah. >> And the migraines trigger exhaustion,
fatigue spikes. It's it's a mess. I am a mess. But >> how long have you not not to go into your medical history on recording, but you had it for a few years? >> Yeah. Yeah, it's it's going on two years. um
>> that I have been suffering from it and um it's you know vastly better than it was before but I still get hit with a you know a nice fatigue spike every well the last time was February.
No, the last time was last was last week but before last week it was February. >> One of these days I think I'll feel like I used to maybe. Well, I hear over literally with time it does get better, but it is a matter of time.
>> It's a long time. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's it's the word is like, you know, I'll it'll get triggered if I just think too hard about something. So, I'll go and read something and I'll be processing it and then all of a sudden I'll just crash. >> Okay.
>> And have to sleep, which uh maybe that's just getting old. I don't know. >> No. Well, we'll try to make you not think too much. >> I'm I'm good. I'm here for it. >> Cool. Well, so does anyone know? I I
didn't look it up. Anyone know who's taking minutes? >> Uh, >> you want to do it, Greg? You okay with it? >> Yeah, I can. I can do it. Sure. >> Okay, cool. >> Um, >> get doc up. I I think most of our meetings is just lots of updates
followed by meetings. But let me do the public comment just to see if there's any there's no one in of public. So I don't believe we have public comment. Um so I can move on to our many updates. Um
there's a lot going on I got to say. >> So I thought I thought we'd start with simple and then sort of get more complex. I think I know the answer to this, but hey, Greg, you have any storm water committee updates? >> Well, actually, um, Brennan is going to
be, um, swearing in the stormwater committee members on the 26th meeting, uh, the the shoot select board meeting on the 26th. So, >> Oh, cool. Um hopefully at that meeting um we'll have some we'll some have some
updates on when uh storm order uh mitigation committee is going to be commencing. So >> cool. >> Do you know the other >> who are the additional people besides you and Jen? >> Uh let me see if Brennan CCD us all.
Uh, Robert Douglas, >> James Moore. >> Okay. Bob Douglas is on Concom. >> Um, someone named Stephen who is Lorax lives at MSN.com. >> Oh, okay. Steve Sullivan.
>> Steve Sullivan. Okay. So, yeah, Stephen, Jennifer, James, Robert Douglas, and myself. >> Well, I don't know James, but the other two are great because Steve was on in the highway department for years. So, I actually I went to some stormwater
event that Furcog convened. I don't know, Gail, were you there in in town hall a few months ago? It's like they were doing some storm water thing. But >> I remember talking to Steve like he knows everybody's house in every culvert
and every everything. It's great. >> Um, >> and so yeah. >> Yeah, I think it'll be that'll be great. We had to wait, but it'll be a good committee. That's That's exciting. That's more than I was thinking we would get. So, you can keep us posted then for sure. Um >> I will.
>> So, school lighting, I think, is another fun one. So, you know, this this started about a year ago, you know, when Eric Stalker was at our meeting and he said, "This is not on the agenda, but I just want to say why do we have the lights on the school all the time?" Um, you know,
and I sent out an email to inquire and it sort of didn't go anywhere. And then somehow it came back around a couple months. Oh, I know. It was D. Yeah, Dori wrote to the select board. Um, so,
oh, I guess it was two months ago. I think I reported to you guys about this two months ago. It ended up we have we had a semi-aborted meeting. It was just me and Devon, the police chief. Um, Haley was sick, so she was on for about five minutes and then went to FinCom and probably then went to bed. Um, Devon and
I had a good conversation. Did I did I report on this before? Yeah. So, somewhere in the last month since we last met, we had a really good meeting. It was so Frank McInn was there who's chair of the buildings committee and um
Nate, what's the other Nate's name from spacing? >> Long code. >> Yeah. Right. So Nate, who's on school committee and involved with capital planning, was there, myself and I think maybe it was the four of us. I
think it might have been the four of us, but Frank did some awesome research the morning of the call and I think I wrote to you all, but I just, you know, since it's public meeting, I'll just reiterate it. We can give bits if we want about it, but you know here. So he looked and
the timer, you know, it's an old school timer, so it has the pins and the pins had fallen out. So the lights just never went off. Um, and this was like maybe decades. So it's been on that way for I mean, according to Diane, it's been that way since the 90s, but
all you have to do is get, you know, a couple of dollar pins to put in there. So that was an innovation like all of a sudden we could you know and then he did look at the lights and the lights on the side of the building um are
they're they're light sensitive. They're not motion sensitive. So you know what Ann the principal thought was that they were motion sensitive. Basically when you start the lights go on. Um so if you manipulate the pins that helps a bit. Um
Frank was going to look at changing the angle so they pointed farther down and it seems like there's some adjustability in that. Um, so that would help in terms of the lighting. In terms of, you know, our stuff, it's the lights are just, you know, it's the pins that matter, not so much the angle. And then the next thing
he's going to look into is getting motion detector lights. Um, and so he's going to see here's going to look into I haven't gotten an update from him, but the company that makes them, he was online just and I think they make motion detector lights where you can and the issue is can you just
swap them out? Um, and so if you can swap them out, it's a matter of just having seeing how much it costs and budgeting and getting the work done. But it does not seem complicated. Dale, >> just the ones on the building or how about the standing lights, the post lamps out in the in the parking lot,
could they be also set to motion detection? Those are the ones. That's those actually I take it back. Those are the I wasn't clear enough. Those are the ones on the pins. >> So the the ones that are on the the the tall lights or the pins. Yeah. So those what Frank was going to do is turn them
off when it gets he was taking advantage of the summer. So he said, you know, when it gets dark, so I don't know, like 9:00, 10:00, he'll turn them on and then they'll turn off at 5:00. So rather than being 24/7, it'll be less. and that'll buy us through. And then he was gonna
try to make it so they just don't go on during the summer after the kids leave, right? Um because there's no reason, you know, what Devin said, which was really great, you know, because the police are always bringing the security aspect to it. He said it doesn't matter if there's lights on or not, um in the driveway
portion, it just needs to have um you know, heat for motion detector along the perimeter of the building so if someone comes up to it, they can turn on. So, if that's the goal, which it seems like, you know, it's now on everyone's radar. >> We sort of taken care of the 24/7
lights, which is great. Um, and in between now in the fall, >> if we can sort of figure out a situation where we can sort of put the motion detectors in, um, we could just turn out the big lights permanently. There's really no Yeah, we don't really need them. >> Yeah. >> Um, so that's all it was really cool. I
mean, all the credit goes to Frank. I mean, it just took someone poking around a little bit, you know, >> and knowing what they're looking at. >> Yeah. Well, it sort of it sort of gets back to the digital records and the the the terms, you know, it's >> unless someone actually looks at the,
you know, the primary source. You're just talking in circles and everyone says, you know, Nate says this and Gail said that and, you know, they start citing each other, but no one's ever looked at the damn box. So, so that that was a great outcome. I totally kudos to Frank. Um, and I think
he's on it. So, like I don't think we have to I mean we were only in it I think because of lighting and electrical and you know energy usage and stuff like that but it's it's really sort of a building function thing and I think he's on it which is great. So we can take
credit for being a good catalyst probably which not bad. Um so this might be a short meeting. You never know. Um we all good with lights? Can I move on? So, the solar project with Colonial um that's going a little
solar, but it's going well. So, I I know we've impressed Mark Capidana. I mean, the fact that we got meetings with Masdot. Um so, he and I have met with this team of five people
at this point twice. Um, and when we met last time, they're in the middle of their their inventory assessment to figure out all their assets, which is what I think I mentioned last time. So, they're still doing it. They're one would presume they're two months farther
down the road than they were. So, they may be more than halfway. Where we left it last time was they didn't know how to proceed with procurement. So, once they identified priority, they didn't know how to sort of make it available for this stuff. Um, and so
that was where Mark and I stepped in again. And both of us know the woman who runs the smart program. And they have to do procurement at DOE for a whole bunch of things. So I I think I emailed her, he we both
emailed her and basically said, "Who should who should mass do talk to?" I mean, so it's sort of ridiculous. It's like the government should be able to figure out who in the government there too, but they don't. So going through us, we're pointing in the right direction. So
last week, you know, Mark reached out and said, "Hey, we want to keep this going because they said,"Let's keep momentum." So we're supposed to meet sometime in May. Last week, the woman who's scheduling it said, "So who's reaching out to that other department?"
And I wrote back and I said, "We think you should do that. It's know it's a sister agency. You should be doing it. We shouldn't be doing that." So she said, "Okay." So we haven't heard back yet. But um the other pitch that I made was great that you're doing prioritization, but if you can identify
something that could be a pilot project, you know, and just, you know, do the pilot, figure out how to procure that, you know, Mark is all good to go with finding other municipalities to buy in. And I don't think there's any other game in town, you know, like no one else is
talking to them and we're quite enthusiastic and we're helping them. So, you know, I wish they were a little quicker, but you know, it's state bureaucracy, but we're moving. Um, and you know, they're taking us seriously, like they're not poo pooing us at all.
Um, so it's I think I'll probably have multiple reports in the next few months. It's like, you know, we continue on, but at some point we're going to have a breakthrough. Um, which would be cool. Like, they'll have a site. Um, and you know, and it's all because of the CCA
stuff. It's really It's pretty fascinating. So, any questions about that or comments or thoughts? >> No, just it came at a great time though considering um how many people are looking at their electric bills a little bit closer.
>> Oh, yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, the one thing that's interesting like I mean with the smart 3.0 rules as opposed to the smart 2.0, you know, we if we got energy 100% of the benefit to shoot would have to go to the I think it's 40 it's either 40 or 60
um technically low-income households would get the benefit so the rest of us would not you know because we had pitched well can like twothirds of it go to low-inccome and one third go to the rest of the residents. Um it might be that you know they're excited and want to
give us an exemption once we get there, but at this point we just have to like get the site and get the contracting and we'll figure it out. Um but I think it'll be hugely helpful. Um it I mean it makes them look good and it's it's the thing that's crazy is you
know if you're ever if you're driving west on the north side of the pike near Framingham there's a small raise near the sort of near the rest stop and uh that was done in 2013 and there was a guy at Masdat who set it up and made a
couple of these projects happen. I think there's one in Western Mass, but since 2013, we lost Nate. >> I'm sure he'll come back. >> Um, no one has done it. So, like their all their institutional memory is gone. >> Yeah.
>> Which is crazy. So, they're they're trying to sort of build it back and I think they're we're we're providing that. Um, let's see. When he comes in, I'll admit him. So when he gets back I can shift to the Eversource question
because he's key to that one. Um >> pause the question of the loss of continuity in institutional memory is >> why documentation is so important. I mean yeah got to have a record you can refer to and not as you were just saying
oh he said she said or gee we used to do it this way. Well >> right >> that's no help. someone retires like that's the end of the knowledge. That just doesn't >> that's not the way it should work. >> Um I think it happens unfortunately a lot. But >> y >> um >> yeah,
speaking as someone who uh has worked in the tech industry for the last decade and more. Um yeah, it's a it's a real serious problem there. Nobody writes anything down. I have to yell at them all the time. >> Document document document. Uh,
I just wait. Uh, I have this weird thing. I got a a new second screen because my other one died. And you know, in Windows you can, you know, you can extend. So it
>> both. Yeah. >> And but it's really picky in terms of directionality. like I can only go one way to get the mouse to sort of get on the other screen and then you have to go back the other way and it's just I'm not used to it. So, it's always this
production of like, okay, which way is my mouse going? Um, >> you can't just swing across the two. >> No, you I have to like I have to go up and to the right to get onto the other screen and then I have to remember to come down and to the left to drag it back, which is a real pain.
>> You're on a Mac? >> No. There there should be a setting to arrange your desktops. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, if you arrange them, you should be able to put them side by side. >> Really? Oh, I'm going to look right after we get off because that would it's
it makes Yeah, it makes my productivity like >> Hey, welcome back. >> Yeah, I I completely understand. >> You were missed. >> Yeah, you were missed. >> Well, thank you for that. Um, yeah, I'm struggling a little bit. A little bit of
technical difficulty, but uh I'm at least this far back. One foot in the meeting. >> Okay, that's cool. Well, we we waited for you to come back so we could talk about the Eversource customers. >> Oh, good. I'm excited about that. I can I'm happy to speak to that. Um
>> why don't why don't you start since I've been talking a lot. >> Yeah, I think you know you Michael, you gave um a little heads up to folks um at town meeting that that this is going to come And um and I I was a little surprised that it
it happened as quickly as it as it has. Um so Colonial reached out to us with two rate projections. uh one for Eversource and one for National Grid. And the Eversource basic service in
August is set to increase um to I had the numbers like right in front of me uh before I lost my my stuff, but it's actually 15.93
cents per kilowatt hour in August. um which compares uh less favorably to the basic CCA rate of um 14.16. So this is the trigger that Colonial had
prepared us for uh mentally. Um that if if that uh rate tipped uh in the favor of Eversource customers that they would they had already arranged with First Point uh to onboard those 40 households that are Eversource households.
And uh true to their word, they are uh prepared to put out a mailing in about mid June, which would allow for an August meter read enrollment. >> Oh, good.
>> Um which is uh yeah, about when that Ever Source rate is due to kick in. Um so it's it's good news for those 40 households. Um and you know the national
grid rate increase is 17.29 that's coming. >> Yeah. So if I read that correctly. So um that's like three cents. Yeah. 3 cents per kilowatt hour in favor of Shootsbury
CCA basic service compared to the national grid. Um, great. >> We're looking looking smarter by the moment. >> Yeah, >> it really is. Yeah, it really is. >> Now we just need some community solar in there to get us all some wreck credits.
>> Town will start paying for electricity. >> It's probably Well, I'll just I keep going there. I wanted I I'll get back to the Greg's point afterwards, but so we have to we we just have to decide that we want to
include Eversource in, right? Or is it just going to be an automatic thing? It seemed like Denise was asking us. So that's a great question. Um so let me just quickly skim.
Um, so the way Denise phrased it, um, she wrote to us that we can pull together a new list from Ever Source and work with blahy blah blah. Um, so, uh, I I do think that's an invitation
for us to, you know, respond, um, either in the affirmative or the negative. But um uh so so yeah, maybe that that's something that we should uh either vote on or um
yeah, decide in a in some capacity that we can respond back to Colonial on this point. >> I think a vote would make sense >> that it's in the record. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Great. >> It looks like we're all in agreement, so it should be easy. But uh anyone want to
make a motion? I will make a motion to uh uh vote to include uh to get to get the work done to get Eversource customers into the community choice aggregation program. >> Second. >> Great. Cool. Any other discussion?
>> Hearing none. >> Greg, how do you vote? >> I >> Nate >> I. >> And I'm an I. So it's unanimous. >> Welcome to the Eversource team. And uh so Nate Nate, will you follow up with Denise and sort of just let her know and
maybe support whatever? I mean, I'm assuming the postcard's going to be similar to the National Grid one, just, you know, with the details shifted a little bit. >> That's right. It should be virtually identical. Um, so I'm really glad that they laid that groundwork for us with
First Point just to um because I think that was a little bit of a surprise to them like kind of late in the process that we had that sort of dual citizenship if you will like with National Geo. So >> yeah, >> all is well there. That's good.
>> Do you do you know geographically I keep thinking it's probably January Hills that is an Eversource, but you're a National Grid person, right? I am and I I thought that it was closer to Lake Wyola like but I don't know.
Great. Where are you at? >> Well, I'm on Hawks View Road, but it's that's a private road that's right off of January Hills Road. I think most of the people in the January Hills Road area have um have Eversource. >> Yeah, because Leverett is Eversource.
So, it just seemed like if you go west um >> Okay. >> Interesting. Okay. So, before we shift to the decarbonization thing, I just I think I mentioned this last time, but since Greg brought it up because it's it's be interesting to figure out if
this is our purview, but um did I tell you about the micro grid thinking by lever? Did I bring that up? >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, Greg, the short version is I was on a Franklin County Planning Board meeting like a month or so ago and found out
that Leverit already has a municipal light plant for their broadband, but they were going to create a second municipal light light plant for electric work. And the idea was they were going to get all the offtake of energy from
residents in town that have solar, collect that, and then feed it back to the school, the town hall, the library, um the public safety folks. Um and what the guy on the planning board um Richard Nador who used to live in
Shootsbury was saying is that one of the benefits of being MLP is that you can run your own cable you know so you you know you can just sort of create your own network so it would be it's not going to happen quick but it would be interesting you know as our
decarbonization physical stuff happens just to think about you know how we get that going because it seems like creating ML LP is a process. You know, I know from the broadband stuff, we had a vote to create it. um and this sort of thinking about it. But if it's going to
take a few years, we I think it might be interesting if we're interested to figure out like >> how do we how do we create that construct and sort of advance it because >> I just for I mean aside from the controlling our own electricity which is cool I think it's it speaks to real
resiliency you know like we're we're just the sourcing is closer to home. So are you you guys up for that? Just sort of I mean not immediately but we could sort of figure out how to sort of move that forward >> the groundwork. Yeah. >> Yeah absolutely. I would be very
interested in that. >> Yeah, you unmuted. >> Yeah, I unmuted just to say that um I think it that that kind of thinking is like a natural maturation process. like whether or not we decide that's
ultimately where we want to go. Um you know we have we have Colonial helping us as we learn this space right and um you know we may want to graduate in that way but um uh it's absolutely worth you know
doing the homework and and learning what where we might go if you will. >> Yeah. I'd like to ask what you said about uh we can have our own cable. Does that suggest that we can do buried cable instead of hanging them on the
poles and avoid the whole tree limb falling, breaking, electricity outages, etc., etc. >> I think we >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's the cost is the issue. Like no one does it because it costs so much. I think if we
have the right to do it, then we can do it any way we want. Um, you know, and just I mean just thinking about this, it seems like to Nate's point, the first logical step would be to, you know, just create a separate MLP for electric, >> right?
>> So, we have that in our back pocket because I think that's the hardest bureaucratic lift. >> Um, and then everything else is sort of >> Yeah. >> blows from that in terms of practicality. Um, and uh, it's probably an easier town meeting. So, if if you say we're just going to create the shell
organization, um, you know, that's we already have an MLP, so there's a model, but >> if it's not costing money and it's just sort of there for when we're ready, um, it's it's it's not a bad pitch. >> Yeah. >> So, okay. Well, I'll I'll figure out how
to keep us on track with thinking about that. Um, so the big development, not that those other ones weren't, but is the whole decarbonization um, building grant stuff. And so this week, and thank you all for agreeing to
sort of Oh, let's see. That's so weird. It it said that you were not in the meeting, Nate, but maybe it's your it's your computer. Okay, that's what it was. >> Got it. >> Me, too.
>> There we go. He's a twin. >> He's everywhere. Um, so thank you for moving the meeting. I think it it's was definitely helpful. Um, so I guess I'll do a little quick summary and then Nate was, you know, at
the side visit with me. So Nate, if you want to chime in, but so the way I was thinking about this is we have the technical assistant grant proposal due at the end of May. And like I've said, you know, I've written a
gazillion grants, so I'm not worried about writing the grant. What I was the two things I was worried about is having enough specifics and having the right lingo to be compelling to DOER. Like I still, you know, the fact that there's only 35 climate leader communities in
the state, we're well positioned and I can't imagine there's a lot of them applying for technical assistance. Like we're not going headto-head with a lot of people, but you want to have a good application. You want to be compelling. you don't want to sort of um not be able to put your best foot forward. So, the idea was to get two site visits. So, the
the first one was Train, which is the folks that Nate reached out to um and connected us with, and they came on Monday with a team of four people. Um one guy drove from New Jersey, which was pretty impressive. Um, and we did we
visited all all five buildings and you know the way I presented it which is just sort of to to reiterate to to you guys but I think I've wrote written an email is that I've been thinking like this plan A which is the school is the place where you know in terms of
electrical uses and decarbon decarbonization is the priority. So, you know, can we do geothermal at the school and deal with the oil tank and sort of really shift and that would be the priority, but there's a lot we don't know in terms of visibility, you know,
technical and financial, um, etc. So, that would be plan A. And then plan B was if we can't do geothermal at the school, can we check off everything else on the decarbonization roadmap? Um, because if we can apply for a million dollars, we should get as much of that
work done as possible. Um and so the first crew from train went that's how we presented it. So they went through all the buildings, you know, we had the decarbonization, I mean the geothermal conversation of the school and then sort of walked on to everything else. And I we were there, we did it was about two
and a half hours, I think, the whole walk through and it was pretty comprehensive. And then the second day we had I can never remember these people's names. >> Right. >> Right. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know why that one does not stick. Um and so
there were two guys. They were the geothermal engineers. And so Breitcore has worked on geothermal at Yale and is doing I think they said they were doing the implementation but not the design at Mount Holio. They're doing um the
implementation at Northampton High School which is why the engineers came. They were in the neighborhood so they came to Shinsbury. Um and then they've also done Agawam High School. So they've done big projects. They've also done Massachusetts based projects. So, it's just the two engineers. We were only at the school. We spent an hour at the
school though and it was much more in-depth. You know, it's like we just talked about geothermal. And you know what I told our team before they arrived is I just wanted to soak up as much information and as understanding as we can. Like we haven't committed to either of these two, but the more we can
understand on the front end, the better. and you know special like it was so was Nate and myself from ECAC Anna Herd from school committee and then Steven Dol and Jeff Quackenbush from buildings committee um and then Matt the custodian at the school so there were six of us
>> excellent >> yeah I so was you know everyone's listen listening with different ears and different levels of experience and understanding and I think it was it was definitely helpful um but Nate you want to chime in about your experience >> yeah I think it was um
it was terrific. I I I mean I I learned quite a bit about how a company, a firm would go about retrofitting uh the elementary school um in terms of
what parts of the system they would leave intact, what what parts might need rep, you know, would be replaced, uh how they might approach um the drilling. Um the teams were as Michael mentioned different. Um it's the
bright core crew uh the the ground source engineer uh component of a larger team. Uh so they were able to speak to um you know that perspective. the the
train team was a little larger and I thought was able to speak a little more broadly about process and then um design thinking like different ways that they
might uh approach the the challenge of um reducing oil consumption in the elementary school. Uh so um yeah, I think I think those visits put us in a probably a good position to uh go for
that technical assistance grant. Um and I just um I thought it was great. It was like the timing is incredible. Um right down to the weather when we were walking around. So um it was it was good stuff.
And um you know I think as soon as um you know these teams come back with notes their feedback I think we we would be able to just forward that to the whole crew here. So >> so they're going to come back with the
language in their notes. Is that what you're saying? >> Yeah I can tell you about that. So I emailed with both of them, both teams today um just to sort of check in and remind them and had a very specific ask in terms of the the first question in the grant is describe the project in
terms of you know technology cost savings, you know, stuff that the OE would want to know. And so that's that question more than anything is what we need them for. Um and then there's two other questions. One's about cost. And if we're going to ask for $160,000, you
have to be able to articulate why you want that money. Um, so those are sort of the two big things and I reached out to both. Um, the train team is meeting tomorrow and are going to get me stuff back and the Bright Core folks have
already been talking to each other because there's less of them. Um, and they were going to send back a summary. So I think to Nate's point when I get it I was going to send it out to ECAC but also buildings committee and Haley so everyone has that information and then
there's some version of integrating that information into a draft. And so in terms of what I'm thinking for the process like in for the I think I'm going to write the draft and I'm leaving town next Wednesday for a
few days. So, I figured by Tuesday I'll have it done the draft and I was going to send it out to you all. Hate buildings committee um so everyone can have at it and then Memorial Day is Monday like next week. So like if if everyone can get back to me by that
Tuesday so like having about a week >> I'll incorporate that and that's the last week of May. So we do the I think Haley and I can then sort of like massage it. And what I the way I've set it up is the application currently is in word because it's much more manageable.
So I'll either share it out there or I'll put into a word doc uh into Google doc. Um and ultimately have to put into a spreadsheet which is a format for the application. But you know having a group edit and review things and the spreadsheet makes no sense at all.
>> So but I think it's we're I'm pretty confident at this point. I worked on it a little bit today. the stuff that I could answer. Um there's not I mean it really is that first part like you know how do you describe what's going to happen like to
Nate's point it's a great example of like um apparently in Northampton they're going to keep one of the boilers as a backup you know and so the question is do we want to keep a boiler or not? We don't have to get into that level of detail but the more you understand you can then articulate you know in a
summary fashion a little little bit better. Oh, the one thing I was going to say which is really cool um is so the f the federal clean energy grants, you know, for residences for residents, you know, for
solar and everything ended in December 2025 for commercial for solar and wind and I think battery projects that's ending in 2027. So, like if you were
doing a commercial solar project now, like all the ones in Western Mass, you can get you can still get the subsidy if you start construction by July 4th of 2027. Or if you put the project into service by July 4th, 200, no, put it in
construction by July 4th, 2026. So, really soon. Or put it into service by July 4th, 2027. So, that's solar, wind, and batteries. with geothermal. What they reminded me because I had seen this before is that it's 2029 and you get a
whole bunch of subsidies like up to 40%. And the really cool part, one of the things I think that I learned was, you know, cuz Nate and I both have geothermal at home like you do, Gail. And so I think we all have one well hole, you know, that they drilled. And
the the the Brightcore team were saying, "You have three?" Really? Woo. I only have one. Wow. Okay. Well, the Brecore folks said we'd have like at least 20 >> somewhere between 20 and 30. Um, and the logical place to put that is the parking
lot. >> And so, if we dig up the parking lot and put the bore holes in, the federal subsidy would like 40% of it would pay, if not more, for the cost of repaving the parking lot, which is beautiful.
It's a beautiful thing. >> And throw in some solar towers while we're there. Yeah. So, it's, you know, if we can get this timing right, it's going to be financially advantageous. >> Oh my goodness.
>> That that'll be very cool. And I think Yeah, I you know, from a town perspective, it's it's sort of a slam dunk if we can package this the right way. >> Oh, no kidding. >> And uh because the parking lot definitely has to get done. Um so, let's see what else. I think oh so the last
piece is and I'll say I for the site visits although technically you know committees can go on site visits and they don't have to you know post it and the quorum issue doesn't matter. I've gotten mixed messages of like how much
you can talk amongst each other during a site visit, you know, like you don't have to notice it. You don't you can have a quorum, but um so I thought to play it safe if Nate was there with me, we'd be some quorum so we wouldn't have to worry about talking, which is why I asked him to come and not do a whole
committee. Um and I think for consistency, we're meeting we're meeting with DOE on Tuesday. um Nate, myself, and Haley and this Mark Rubinsky, who's the assistant director of green communities at DOA,
who's the person who oversees clean uh the climate leader program, and up until recently was filling in as the Western Mass Coordinator. When I asked him questions a few months, a few weeks ago, he said, you know, we should have a meeting because I was
trying to understand how these processes work. And so we've got a meeting on Tuesday at 11:00 and the main purpose I think there's going to be a lot of information that we learn from but the main purpose is
both train and brightcore are part of this category of vendors that are called energy service companies escos and so as far as I know and you any of you can correct me but they have a different procurement process where if you
contract with an esco you can go from like assessment design work through implementation and you don't have to reprocure and do an RFP all along the way which would be a nightmare and so my
my big concern the one I want to talk we talk it through with them is I asked Mark we don't want to make a misstep you know like okay we're applying for this grant I don't so far I think site visits are fine because we didn't commit to anything like we don't have a vendor we
haven't done anything but I want neither one of the companies that we talked to they told they made a point of saying we're escos and you should look at you know chapter 25a section 11i that's where escos are allowed so they know they know the citation but because
climate leaders is new they don't know how the esco process works with the climate leader process so like Northampton high school they're not climate leaders so they're just doing esco and paying for it however they're going to pay for it. Um, you know, and you know, Nate made a good point in some
email recently of like if we get through a certain point with the assessment and we decided to stop, we still have to pay them even if we didn't have to RFP it. So, we need the grant, you know. So part of the discussion is to make sure that we're doing the steps so that we don't
preclude either of those two from being able to apply and we don't screw ourselves up because you know they might not be the ultimate you know the eventual vendors but we have a relationship with them and if we like them we might want to have them. So like just so that's a lot of what it is and I
think the other part of Tuesday is just to sort of telegraph that we have our act together. We've did these site visits. We're planning to apply. Um, you know, depending on how it works, I mean, it's it would be tight. It would be really interesting if we could apply for
climate leader in February 2027. That would be amazing. If not, I think it would be August. Um, but let them know that, you know, we're we're actively involved in this stuff. So, um, so I was, you know, I had been thinking, well, if after that phone call, we'll
know more, but I can I can just send an email and report out because it's all informational. Um, >> does that make sense? Anyone have questions about that that stuff? >> Sounds good. >> And Nate, I don't know. I I asked Nate to look at, you know, Mark's email to
see if he could understand it any better than I going into this meeting, but do you have any thoughts you want to share on it? Um, I I'm looking forward to Tuesday's meeting because I um I had a hard time
making much of it. Um, there's like the legal like there's the legal component, there's the contractual component. I mean, uh, I was almost immediately uh over my skis uh with with with that
documentation. So, >> yeah, >> you know. Yeah, I I think if once it just gets explained orally, it'll be like, okay, this we'll get it. >> But yeah, the written stuff is just it doesn't help. >> Um, so and I think, you know, the fact
that the regulation was written before a climate leader, so there's no like >> the mentality of there could be a grant project that inter intersects with this. It's not written for that. Um so and it's it's all very exciting and I think
we're doing you know by our June meeting um I we'll we'll have submitted this thing we'll know stuff um I'm sort of assuming I guess it's the last part um I this was because I was answering they
asked about timeline in the grant I'm sort of thinking if I understand this correctly like we'll submit the grant in May and then whatever the ESCO process is we can do like June, July, August and the September and get that process going
because it seems like if you can do them independent of each other and you figure out who your ESCO vendor is when we get notified that we got the technical assistance grant then we just yeah we just have to contract with them and they can go. Um it see it would be silly to it seems to wait to
get notified and then do the procurement because you're wasting time. Um, and do is going to spend a few months making a decision, you know, they they always do. So cool. So, yeah, it's really exciting.
It's pretty cool. Um, leading, you know, I don't think there's many little little towns doing this stuff. And if we get geothermal, that'd be amazing. So, I'm I'm curious to see what the financial like their financial estimates
look like. Um, so, um, any other updates before we move to minutes? >> Um, what did you say the plan B was? >> Oh, the plan B is to do all the other buildings on the decarbonization road
map. Um, and you know, check those off. The, you know, one thing I'll mention, I think I know I sent this to Gail. I don't can't remember if I said to everybody, but when we did the site visits and we were behind the fire department, I made a point of um yeah,
everyone saw this because Nate did this work. I made a point of saying that when we were there last time, Gail point, you pointed out that there's wetlands back there. Um and so someone, it might have been Nate, it might have been the train folks saying, you know, we should definitely get it delineated, which is sort of a duh, you
know, that would make sense as part of the assessment. Um and so I mean if it's possible to delineate it and put some you know PV up there. Um oh the other thing that was interesting you know Shootpayer is a resourcerrich
community in terms of expertise. So we were at the highway department and I asked a question that we've talked about in terms of you know I said we've been thinking about maybe putting solar on the roof but one of the roof you know one side of the roof is not in good condition and we might have to do
that. and Jeff Quackenbush and Greg I don't know you probably don't know Jeff but he was like a lead architect at UMass so he was doing like big stuff as he said he was spending lots of money um but he said you know the fire department
is is a steel structure and although you know it's steel >> department or the highway department >> he said it it probably couldn't withh hold the weight of PV on top which sort of surprised me. I all assumed it would
be really sturdy and he was he said not. So, we could look into it, but if you can't put stuff on PV, you know, on the highway roof, figuring out how to put some more in the back of of the fire department, you know, given the wetlands, that would be sort of cool. I
actually I also worked with Beth Wilson, who's the chair at Concom, which I think I spoted you guys just to sort of keep them in the loop. >> The more everyone knows in advance, the better. Yeah. Speaking of that, do do like do we
have a good idea of where like like potential solar installations could be um just across the entire town because I know there's like specific places we've talked about, but uh like has there been a survey done or u
>> we talked about it a few years ago. I I think we're about to trot on it. And the I think the sad situation is besides the building mounted and the ones that are around buildings, we don't have a lot of property that you know we could own. I mean, I think I don't remember how what
we said about behind town hall and that's probably the biggest open area that the town owns. Um, you know, there's lot 032, but the front end is wetlands and the back is all wooded at this point. Um but Gail are you am I remembering correctly?
>> Yeah. Um and what excuse me it was John Child who uh from PB Square who warned me about the wetlands first behind the fire and he said at the time they must have gotten an exemption of some kind to put them in in the first place.
>> I didn't click on that because then then that says go to the records and see on what basis did they get it. So, I wrote to Beth and asked her to look up the record. What was the uh approval in 2011? Um, and she was going to have the land
use clerk go back and dig in records and see because the the statute you cited, Nate, wasn't didn't come into being until 2017. So, they couldn't have applied that. So, >> interesting. But it may be on the same kind of terms that have now been
turned into regulations which would be great. >> Yeah. When were you you were on the concom? >> Yeah. >> When were you? >> And I was on the concom in 2011. So I don't remember any of that coming out but I that was still new. I mean it takes many years on the conservation
commission to be able to it's an on job training for sure. Yeah. >> Yeah. Uh, every time I engage with the concom on regs and stuff, I'm I'm humbled. >> Just just getting my head around the terminology. I have to re relearn it, it
seems, all the time. >> Like I'm one for acronyms, but I can't those acronyms I can't retain what they mean. >> RDA NX. Yeah. >> Yeah. And um, so we got minutes and then I think
just setting an X meeting date. So, did we what's let's see the minutes would have been for we're in May, so it would have been April. Um, >> it was the April 9th, 2026.
>> Cool. >> Um, anyone move to approve the April 9th, 2026 minutes? I would like to move to approve the minutes of April 9th, 2026. >> Anyone second? >> A second.
>> Cool. >> Any discussion, edits, changes, anything like that? >> Cool. Okay, let us vote. Gail, how do you vote? >> Nate, I >> Greg, I >> and I am an I. The minutes are approved.
>> Okay. And let's see about June. So, we can go back to Tuesdays. Um, and anyone have any dates since we're
getting like into that summer time? Any dates that people can't do in June? >> The first week, but that's not the right timing anyway for >> Okay. >> I should be pretty available most of June. Okay. How about you, Nate?
>> Um, I would say that the 9th might be a little tight. So, the 16th would be better for me. >> Okay. >> Why don't Today's Today's the 14th, so why don't Well, let's play on the 16th. That works.
>> Looks good. Looks good to me. >> Great. So, June 16th at 7 and we'll have accomplished a lot by then and have lots more to talk about and uh we'll go from there. >> Cool. >> Yep.
>> Same time, same place. >> Same place, same bad channel. So, >> thank you all for being a great committee. This is like >> and thank you for all this the scout work you two just amazing. Yep. >> It's it's fun to move us forward. So,
have a good rest of the evening. See you around. >> Bye-bye.