WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=B9qgr4OOFAE

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: B9qgr4OOFAE):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Called to Order, Minutes Approved
- 00:02:54: Chair's Struggle: Computer Files and Missing Minutes
- 00:07:55: Discussion About the Website and Goals
- 00:13:07: Current Projects, Financial Constraints, and Implementing Recommendations
- 00:16:19: Future Meeting and Adjournment


Part: 1

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Hello. Maybe you start recording. Thank you. >> Yeah, just started. All right. Um, you have the agenda. Yes. You got it? And um, the uh Uh, so we're calling the meeting to order at 4:00 p.m.

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Mike and Ron here. Ron virtually. And previous meeting. Uh, did you get my my um First is the first request is that we close the previous meeting. We never did. >> formally close

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>> Uh, may have a motion that we close it the meeting from April 8th. >> Uh, okay. I make a motion to close the meeting April 8th, 2026. And seconded. [snorts] No discussion. Uh, Michael is a yes. >> Yes.

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And Ron is a yes. Okay. Chair request consideration of previously omitted minutes. You've got that? Yes. >> Uh, this is just a result. I had to go to a meeting to got I'm just listening to the MRPC presentation.

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Which we have a record of and um, I I would ask that uh Uh, we got a motion to approve of the minutes I prepared to fill in that blank. All right. I uh, make a motion to um, approve the minutes for the meeting

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March March 4th, 2025. Meeting. Okay. Uh, and uh, no discussion. Uh, Michael, do you approve? >> Yes. Yes. And I approve. Yes. Okay. Third thing was considering the minutes of April

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8th. Okay. Yeah, the last meeting. Okay. I want a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from April the meeting of April 8th, 2026. Uh I reviewed them and I say yes. Approved.

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Um I uh second the motion. All those in favor? Yes. >> I go yes. Ron, yes. I'm going to uh add two, with your permission, the uh to those minutes under the vote at the

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adjournment time that that we approved that time. All right, so that's going to just be added to those those minutes that we actually approved today. Yes. Yes. All right. Minutes status.

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I haven't been able to let go of the stamp project. And it I think I think I meant you know when when I mentioned I bought the groceries the other day, I mentioned I have an iron deficiency. I got the call today. They're going to start infusions

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next week. They got I have an infusion every 7 days of iron. I tried [clears throat] to do yard work yesterday. And I'll tell you, I picked up the rake and did about 10 ft. Now, I had to sit down. It No. This

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stuff, you know, working with a computer is not as tiring, but it's still Anyway, I I uh found that um >> [laughter] >> I've been been uh chair of the committee through three computers.

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And I wasn't good at backing things up. I had directories for a backup here, a directory for backup there. But then then there's the same files backed up twice, but some filtered in. And then

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moving from computer to computer, I was never good at you I didn't want to use uh the cloud. I wanted to use my my files on my computer, old fashioned bastard that I am. And uh so I didn't really back up intentionally to the But I ended up saying, "Okay, you know,

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I got to do it." And I had uh one Google Drive and OneDrive at the same time. And then I swear they were battling it out to try to fit I didn't realize it, but they were they were they I want to be the main guy. I want

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you know, and Um that was was Windows 10. Just one of those. That was That was Windows 10. [clears throat] Windows 11 is much better at handling this. You hit it you know, home and you got all of drives, everything comes alive. You can see whatever you want.

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Well, I I ended up having some meeting agendas on OneDrive and the minutes on another drive, and I could never line them up. Where's the minutes for the Where's the Where's the agenda? So I ended up taking

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the um all I went through all my files since I stuck since I started with the committee. And about half of it I could throw out cuz it was duplications and >> [clears throat] >> stuff. So it made a lot of room in my file. It went from this to this, you know. But um

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early on I I kept a lot of paper. So I had paper versions of agendas and uh minutes some of which the town never got. So I had come up with uh all together

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over history 30 uh meetings that were never recorded by the town. They don't know they ever happened. I have minutes and agendas, but they they just file the town and know it never happened. So, there's 30 of them. And then there's

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all those that had minutes blank in the data set that the that they have um, that the town has on record. Um, and a lot of them don't have minutes. And I was able to fill some of those. And even if it's just a piece of paper,

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not even a file, you know. And you know, it's a it and a lot of the time I was able to So, I took everything, all the directories I had, the backup directories you know, on the on the on the on the on the hard drive,

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the the thumb drive directories, and all and the old computer and the new computer and I got them all together. And I have a had a made a list of all the files that I have, even if it was just a piece of paper. >> [laughter] >> Going back to 2015.

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And that file of not just paper, but also actual computer files, uh, ended up being, you know, a consolidated file with I could look like 10 lines for a an individual meeting,

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where I was developing the agenda, and then I, you know, finished the agenda, and I submitted it. Um, and then there's the draft minutes and the actual minutes and the second set of draft minutes that I started. It It all came up to be like 300 lines of

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where I actually brought it. There a lot of lines of um, Yeah, this is this is the actual This is what I printed out of it. And what I did is I put the directory, I call it, that

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the file resides in here. So, So, I had minutes in one and you know, agenda in another Mhm. I was I'm I'll be able to pull them together from all these directories. These are just the names of the directory. That's amazing. All right.

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Good morning, gentlemen. Hi. Hey, how you doing? Hi. All right, that's a lot of files. Yeah. So, this is all stuff that you had saved just from These are all files on my computers. Yeah. It's from, you know, three

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computers and all the backup directories and the thumb drives and they have I put them all together. So, that first of all, I had to rename a lot of them cuz they were they were named by I had so some of them were um, you know, done by uh uh Brent and he had a

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different name system. Yeah. Anyway, going down this list and um, in the computer I what I I did is did it a downloaded the file that the uh town clerk has.

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Mhm. The whole thing. Just just downloaded it. So, that in in in Excel file, you click on, you know, a date with the agenda, the agenda actually opens up. All right. And in that way I found the two of them that are, you know, 10 they were posted 10 years after

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[clears throat] the actual data on the meeting. You know, there was something a meeting that occurred in 2013 February they they have posted it in in 20 2004 2023. You know, so it there were several of those in there.

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But, having found them, I think I'm getting close to being able to close that out. But, it's something that I would have to work for on this summer cuz the files have to be moved. I I can do that in in bulk, but they have to be each each of those

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directories where I have files, thumb drive, uh the you know, backup for the you know, all they're all named, but I have to take each of them and back them bring them onto a file that says this this is the one that we're submitting, right? Um and

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go from there. But, it's >> [clears throat] >> I'm glad to be coming I got as I'm getting closer to the end I have more pressure to finish it, you know, cuz there's a lot of work in the damn thing. And I ran into uh um

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uh minutes where the minutes the topic of of the minutes one of the topics was that our our when we submit agendas and we submit uh minutes especially they weren't getting put in. And that's what started me on

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this. I'm looking back, you know, before I started and there's like 40, you know, meetings where well, where's the minutes, you know? I know we had more meetings than that, Right. So, we'll we'll we'll fix that. And uh

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I'm not sure how how important it'll be to posterity, but if anybody wants to wants to know what this committee's done, that's where it's going to show up. Yeah. All right. Um thanks for all that effort. Well, regarding the regarding the um uh

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web page thing. I I'm one Did you get a chance to to uh get involved with that at all? I haven't done anything additional since the last meeting. Okay. Me, either. So, what I what I come up with the idea while I'm thinking about it, you know, I printed out the uh

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uh mission statement that I added to it anyway. Um somewhere the goals that we set out, you know, as a committee, and the uh

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not necessarily the mission statement, but the content of the the webpage might, you know, want to reflect our our goals up front. And that right now there's no place where it does. It's the the the

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our website is is right now kind of kind of stuck in uh climate action plan mode, and there's nothing happening there. Um But just just fixing that would be next. I It's to contribute to

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that effort, my next thing uh probably would be to to bring the goals next to the mission, and make sure that they're in line. And otherwise, as we go forward, that the webpage reflect our mission and

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goals. Yeah. Um do you Do you mean a certain specific set of goals, like the ones we put together >> Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, there's one that's going to be related to education. There'd be one that's related to um you know, finding other sources for for

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energy. Um and then the webpages that we link people to would be related to to helping them understand those issues. >> Mhm. Mhm. That makes sense. Yeah. That's all I got. Yeah.

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All right. Um this the current projects are on the agenda. I guess there's nothing new though, so. There was a uh an invite. If you wanted to go to the um the the the

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Department of Energy is having a conference in Fitchburg related to energy security. Right. Emergencies and stuff. Mhm. And

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so we've you know, they've invited everybody. I can send you the invite if you'd like. I think I saw that. Um somebody forwarded to us from the town, somebody from the town. I don't have that. Um >> [clears throat] >> Yeah, the the pro- the grand project is

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still open and can't do anything more till we fix fix finish that and I think the next thing that comes up is you know, it's all doing it in advance. But the we're making so little progress in

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finding money to to do stuff, you know, we got to figure out whether or not we don't want to apply for something. God forbid [clears throat] we get it, we can't you know, begin to do anything with it, you know. Oh, because of town finances. Finances. Finances. Yeah. >> [sighs]

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>> Yeah, I guess we have to put if we if it's available, we have to put it forward, you know, even if it's doesn't pay the whole bill, you know. Right. All right. I have not contacted Kevin, but he was

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in his office a minute ago. Do you mind if I go over there and ask him what he No. You want to just tell yourself you want Yeah, you join me. Yeah. See if he's still here. He was here when I came, but I didn't want to just stick my nose in there.

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Yeah. All right. >> [clears throat] >> All right. Well, that conversation still has to take place, but I think, you know, I'm I'm suspecting he's going to tell me there's no money, so why should Right. Um That the issue was Well, they you know

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>> Who who in the town would would essentially be in charge of implementing different recommendations? Yes. climate action plan And then that and if the question ever got asked Mhm. Did it ever get answered? You know, you know, did it get answered? What is

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the answer? Cuz I asked to be involved in the conversation, you know, to be informed, right? >> I don't know if we don't need to know for sure if Janet for contacting No, we don't. Or maybe she did and he didn't respond. I don't Mhm. Well, we can investigate that for her. I'll keep on that one.

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Continue. But we spent some time on that, too. Yeah. We had no topics not necess- not reasonably expected. Uh we got none. We got a quorum, none.

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They're closing the meeting out. He thinks we already did, apparently. 18 That's still being recorded, so Didn't he say he's closing the closing meeting we stop recording? No. [clears throat] No. Um

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He said June 10th was a suggestion for next meeting. Might be our last one until the new opportunities come up. I have nothing going on on the 10th as

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uh May 2nd 10th June 10th Yeah, I'm clear. >> [clears throat] >> That look over okay? Yeah. Did you tense up at all? Return? Yeah. Okay. If there's nothing else, Mike, we'll we'll move to adjourn. Okay.

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Move to adjourn the meeting. Second the motion. There's going to be no discussion with two people. Yeah. Uh Uh all in favor? >> Yes. I.