##VIDEO ID:ZeJovRh7XZo## all right so it's you and me right now okay and uh first want to consider the minutes that we've provided for the 612 24 meeting and uh all those in favor of approval of those minutes I Michael I Ronald I that is approved 8 814 four minutes for approval Michael hi hi [Music] and 92524 meeting minutes from our last meeting uh approval Michael hi sent minutes over to the town clerk for some time probably 10 of them or 12 that I haven't sent and uh really when they get them they they batch them anyway and they don't do anything until they get a a person in to can scan them and do it all in a trck event yeah um reporting recr status discussion this this is this this agenda looks a lot like the minutes I was going at first I thought you're you're right I I believe I believe what happened is that when I made made an adjustment here I'm not sure I look at the minut side by side but I saw this earlier I said Jesus did I P save before I more because I start with the the um the uh minutes from the LA from last meeting and make so I make an agenda for minutes and minutes from an agenda you know and I may not have saved but you know what it was and uh you know that we failed to complete working time that's okay to say again just discuss with um with rise discuss rise and I have since advised you that I have said Kathy hey welcome I'm I'm okay good all right we've been talking about you wondering uh you know whether I was alive or not I guess I I almost hey hey w w w w go well last time I heard you were in the hospital and then I didn't have I have anything so I wanted to like for a whole month I was in the hospital yeah oh wow yeah you're at home yeah they couldn't they couldn't I had cellulitis but I had it so bad I don't my family says I almost died but wow I don't know whether that's true or not but I know lemonster didn't do me well they had me for a week and sent me home and then the uh physical therapist came and the nurse and they said we're not touching you they took one look leg up look at my leg and said we're not touching you you need to be in a hospital so my sister told took me to Mass General so I was in there for two and a half weeks trying to figure out what antibiotics they could give me to try to help this thing it was it was not fun so my stamina is gone everything's gone you know are you able are you able to walk on your own or you I have a cane I have a cane just in case I have you know if I have uh issues as far as stability goes yeah yeah yeah all right glad you're home glad you're here at least an improvement yeah thank God yeah well we've already been through the minute portion of the meeting and Mike and I were at those meetings and we've approved a minute so okay that's that sounds good moving on to the uh next part you got the agenda there do you need to see you need to see you got it okay um yeah so the um status discussion uh where we were here is that that I have contacted Kelly Brown and I asked her because I wish to to check if there are alternative uh contractors to do our utility and GRE communities work and a she comes back with u uh I have sent your request to the uh to the the person in control of this stuff at National Grid what and I said yeah so I I so i s her Tech back and I said town is a unitive yes not National Grid if it makes a difference and she sent me a message back to oh I know what I'm doing you s you know National Grid is the right one then I got aat text from the guy at National Grid who says I'm not the right one I'm sure apologize and I said it to one for oh my God so Kelly's kind of swamped then too then what's that Kelly must be pretty swamped too if she's sending things to National Grid no well I I don't you can say that she's swamped you say that she's not familiar with towns one or the other interaction with her since she came to the kickoff meeting a year ago right and and we go all around the room introducing each other and I and I chime in saying well you look at I'm the last one to be introduced here and um I I would just like to point out the fact that 85% of the money 200,000 $185,000 is being spent on schools and the schools are not represented at this meeting the kickoff meeting so Kelly says oh well I guess we should you know reschedule the meeting know do another so I it's it's like in my position you have to keep your eye on this stuff it it's just not happening the way you would expect yeah um oh since we got a change order request from from uh rise I saw that rise right and uh that change order needed to be executed so that rise could work on it and Rise told me Frank Davy told me in a text youbody probably got a just tons of text he sent me in a text that that work had to be completed in order for us to qualify for the round in the spring yeah so after I sent this to to town and I didn't hear anything for like a week I contacted Serena and asked her you know was a status and uh Teresa got a C got a cop in my message and she said s you know please check on this for Ron right away and I got back that um Nelson was checking it out looking at it um but hadn't signed it yet he want to check some things and uh so the next day I guess after he realized that it was something whatever he signed it and I got a message saying that had been sent uh today I asked rise Frank the status of all the work that he has you know going there there's really two main things going on right now the mun uh LEDs which the town agreed to pay a portion of and it's it's getting done but it's not a green communities program thing it's a utility that's the thing that we authorize at town meeting uh yes town meeting and uni till is giving incentives yeah said it I mean this is one that came up last uh last summer right while I was out and uh in July an opportunity came up that I didn't get involved with it was sent not to me I got a copy of it but an opportunity came up it was sent to slave aler somebody and um he asked did did you guys you guys uh asked me and uh Karen Chapman if we thought that it was a good deal Karen Karen said well uh it's a good deal if you can afford it but the the the drink ofs program really isn't helping with with uh the town buildings uh with the town buildings anymore and it it wasn't a town building thing was a great deal it was fantastic it was unbelievable huge return on that like three years and wow because because the incentive was so big right um but they didn't act they didn't do anything with it I I responded that I thought it was a great deal but I'm not sure that Fel ever saw or paid attention to my and uh so we end up with um not acting and when I went to Davies looking for our next quote he saidwell you didn't even respond to me on the last one I said well you know we want to do that he says we didn't sign the contract what the hell uh inv so it was too late to get the same incentive so we lost like a $16,000 worth of incentive a big deal we we incentive and we had an opportunity to do it but the incentive was far less still a good return on investment just not insane like it had been and the town voted to do it we and it's it's happening today I got advice that that is nearly done he thinks it's nearly done um the the LED lights for Beauties uh as far as the change that's that's what all the all the Municipal all the remaining buildings municipals that do not already have LEDs lighting came all at the same time and uh you know was a $60,000 deal to flip light bulbs in bunch of buildings and they um had a huge insentive for it it was only out because the community U the green communities program doesn't pay for LEDs in public buildings anymore only only the schools that's bizar well because they are making people act you know and we still got a pretty good deal I think it was was even a better deal the original one with um with unal it it wasn't as good as free but yeah long time ago they decided to you know few couple years ago they decided to not do and they warned us for for a year you got to do your the L the we're going to do the schools from now on we're not going to do the lvds and and it and it uh came up eventually as a unal it's all it's probably all the same money you know I'm sure Us in the first place you know um but who holds it all that I don't yeah they got the they got the uh that we got that project going um the the problem I have is that rise had assured me they'd be done with that project that last round so that we qualify to go in go in the fall um they promised us that we get it done and then at the last minute he turns in this um uh retro report which has something on it that he says that the utility may not want us to may not let us close this out until we get it done and it was like two weeks before the deadline for the and it was never going to happen so and what he he his text was speaking around the fact that he knew that he wasn't going to be able to go forward but I asked him are you telling me that this is not gonna happen he says yes I am all right so we end up with um not qualifying for the fall and at this point I'm not sure that we'll qualify for the spring unless he'll get he gets that stuff done but we but we had a like a 10day delay here getting into the contract yeah the um so I have asked Kelly if there's a new if there's an alternative vendor and I don't know if there is one out here I assume there are a lot of them inside of you know 495 but out here I I'm not sure that you know the utility has more than one when rise is technically what' you say when when we first started there were two vendors rise and there was somebody else I can't remember who it was but rise they everybody wanted to go with rise because they R rise is is I'm I'm pretty certain technically as good as you'll ever find yeah administratively they lost our Cod they can't get anything done on time yeah they uh you know read around the bush they can't get me a new quote why they want me to tell them what to quote I'm telling you to quote me everything so I can decide which things I want to do exactly and so those are all vendor issues yeah so Kelly Kelly sent whatever it was to um National Grid well it's that she she later on she corrected herself and she sent it to the person who's responsible for venders at uh un and it's been this is the third day and I haven't heard anything back yet he could be scratching his head he could call he could be really stupid and call Frank and say hey they don't like you anymore you know that work here I don't know um just letting you guys know what's going on and there's lots of interaction going on you don't see it all because it's it's too freaking much all right um so I've reported what's what's What's happen happen there um energy goals um we had looked at the Mii downloaded uh data uh C in last few weeks and uh two projects that we were working on here is uh making the energy energy committee inputs to the master plan um had we broke it down into two parts one one was uh how to use the data to try to show people you know the savings that we've achieved and the other is the master plan itself the wording the way it the way it's said the the uh the presentation of the energy equipment section is something that the Mike worked on and and had it down pretty good we looked at it we took a good look at it last meeting and decided that the I really just wanted to see it as a whole now how how we present it to um Jessica you know maybe you shouldbe give it to Jessica with the sideline you know the highlighting and everything to say this is what we change but for our purposes of of editing it and understanding the complete piece it's easier for me to read if I just see it the way we wish it could be read when it's all done um did I say say did I say I was going to do that because now I saw the note for that and then I I said oh I forgot to do that that's that's that's all we need and and uh uh I guess um yeah it just be inter mechanically how to actually do because what I I have a PDF do I have a word a word version of that or just PDF of the master plan you can ask you could ask Jessica for the word version okay because that would be easier to actually there are programs that convert PDF to Word oh that's true yeah I could try that I don't know if you have that my work computer has that yeah I have acrobat I'm not sure how well it does it's Hit or Miss yeah I've done that before I've tried to do that yeah you know if you one one alternative would be to have her send it to you right in words so that you're sure that you know going has go through too many filters right um but uh we first we talk about the um the spreadsheet Part I having looked at it further I I was focusing really more to learn about the sheet than anything else on the uh street lights and what I learned about the street lights the street lights have saved a lot of money and it's it's a big number partly because the um street light dollars per kilowatt the cost for kilowatt hour includes the rental cost of the luminares other words we don't own the light bulbs right we rent them really we we we are getting rental and maintenance for a fee per month that is included in the cost right thinking mathematically does it make sense to accumulate the savings when the savings include that figure well um we pay that figure every month anyway right right it is truly part of the monthly cost and it doesn't accumulate it spent so I think it's appropriate to include the rental you know that that lumire which is way it is in U in uh Mei I I've been working with um John uh d there's a guy at npole yeah um and what I asked him eventually what I we got down to is that I just need to know that the figures in mi include the cost of the supply and the delivery and then why does the street lights look so ridiculous and and I have answers for all three he says they supposed to include both the supply and the blurry uh he can't be sure that that's what they did but that's what it's supposed to you know when I will when I looked at the numbers I said okay some of these things are coming out to like you know 9 cents a kilowatt hour they say when the hell has it ever been K but that's the water department see because the water department has some generation against use and if they produce oh oh so yeah and and it's all put together it's all part of the same right calculation because it's part of the Mei data and you we we may want to consider separating the water department just so that we can see how great they're doing but they are part of our savings right when I worked it all out and I don't know if you guys I did oh I did send this wish I brought my computer I made a modification since this I had a question on that even without yeah I did a a uh little spreadsheet a summary of of just the street light section and um what it comes out to is that the street lights job in five years saved the the town $62,000 yeah wow we spent $500 of town money and we've saved 6,200 it's like it paid for itself in a few months or something it's $10,000 a year right so um this where how are the annual savings calculated it's not a simple subtraction in other words in 2018 we spent 20,666 according to this so we comparing it then in 2019 we spent 13,000 for25 but we're not just subtracting one from the other because that's that number wouldn't match okay everything the base year is 2018 right so you take the usage yeah you take what you spent in 2019 yeah and subtract that from we spent in 2018 yeah that's your Sav it doesn't look like the right number though from 13,000 to 20,000 it should be approximately 7,000 you're right there's something wrong with that number well it may be that I picked the 2017 number rather than no that's the post nearly the same is it I'll look at that yeah that's the way that's the way it's that's the M that's meaning of of the intent of the what hell is that Ron when did you send that spreadsheet because I didn't see that this this one went today oh for the first time yeah I think all all the number and the numbers seem to be going up every year even though the spending sometimes went up sometimes went down like 2023 our spending was 14 you know it looks like only about a $6,000 saving what's the cost per kilowatt hour what right yeah you're somehow adjusting based on cost per kilowatt hour or something I remember we talked about that last time that you I'll look thanks for pointed that I look at that again starting with that whatever happened in the First Column is what's happening across yeah you probably copied the formula now yeah because it wasn't a formula in your spreadsheet it was just a number so you made it's like you did the calculation somewhere else and then copied the number yes it is yeah I have wrong column balance uh yeah that needs to be corrected so it's still a lot of savings it's a lot of savings any way you look at it um and I wanted to uh I was going to readjust this I change that to uh The Heading now says street lights conversion project results rather than towns and energy committee thing um also I'm I'm pop I'm going to create a uh change this around a little bit so instead of having negative numbers being the savings I have to have positive numbers being the savings since that's what the chart is all about right said the savings go up right either show savings going up or spending going down either way you know it's got to gota highlight one or the other can't have them both um I did eliminate the 2016 column because it was already it's not really a relevant column to the data but I I thought it was relevant for us to look at because 2016 is is what 18 20,000 kilowatt more than 2017 it's almost like someone left them on all the time and they discovered that so in 2017 they like you know got really conscious and used them less because there was no bulbs changing there what happened you go from 22,000 you go from 28,000 to to 33,000 and part of it has to be part of the difference uh in kilowatt hours has to be um it just has to be that they were aware but we hadn't done anything to fix the lights at that point we when we when we see Rob I asked i i s that's another part of the meeting here I I did in fact send uh a a list of questions to Rob which I applied to you guys too you wanted to add questions you could but I I asked some questions to him about I've invited him to come to a meeting I didn't really expect him to show up tonight because he had such short not but I did tell him we have a meeting on the 13th next month I have already uh pre-arranged meeting dates for us going throughout the year and if we don't actually use those dates we'll little change them but this is the best way to make sure we get the room we want then that is available when we need it so we already made Advanced commitments and hopefully you know they work out they last one um all right so gas use increases the electric is easier for some reason or other to to get a day get data on the gas when you look at it it's a huge puzzle to me how we could have spent so much money improving the uh efficiency you know air seiling and insulation and the gas use increases even though there's there's no other justification for it other words the temperatures have actually been going up on average for the last five years and we're using just as much or more gas than we did before we did the insulation so there's a be probably a behavioral issue you know people saying oh place is insulated now we can turn the thermostat up for a couple of degrees um I don't know what there's there there's a lot of that that goes that's not negative it's just way people are we know that from from the uh home performance industry I know that when I when I in when I gave someone uh you know a better shower head they started taking warmer showers you know longer showers you know it's just they weren't necessarily going to get the savings they going change their behavior um but it it's something that that ultimately as an energy committee you want to call people's attention someone should be monitoring the electric use because if you see one month it goes you know up 25% and there's no reason for it the question is who on site at that school or building is responsible should be someone responsible to turn out the lights to make sure to look at the electric bill look at the gas bill I don't know how this town handles that they get a bill pay it don't look at it you know I don't know so the data we look at I don't think tells you the story when I drive by a school you know in the limousine business drive by a school in town at 3:00 in the morning and all the lights are on I'm saying what in the hell is going on you know so there ought to be someone responsible for this function in every school and every building um or in general um oh I I think it's question we could ask Teresa how are is energy being monitored in town and God knows she's busy but this is our job we got to ask her anyway all right and I will do that I'll ask her how is energy monitor in town um do we get a lot out of this the study of that data but the big puzzle to me is why we're not showing more savings on the uh on the on the gas side we it they show pretty PE I think we came up with uh it may be just as wrong as this one is but we came up with $3,000 savings uh accumulated for the um for the electric side we weren't really able to come up with the significant savings on the on the the gas side in examining the data at least the way we did if we were to start playing with elements like you know take out the water department see what that does to our gas saving because they don't use a lot of gas they mostly electric you know how they influence each um one thing I've learned from this project is I I got to have a better understanding and I I do from the project better understanding of the data that we're looking at in in the ey it does seem to be complete I haven't found any you know serious blanks like I did before with the oil it seem to be working okay um we also at the last meeting what's next with that I'm going to have to continue with this and reviewing that data the spreadsheet we also went over edit uh Mike's edit to the master plan last time and he and he's uh he had side notes that he had integrated into the plan that that so I I could better understand it when they were together um next step with that is might's going of be um uh trying to trying to get it edited so to a point where there's one where we can show Jessica what changed and another one that we can use to read just to see what the final product works like and we we may be able to vote at at a meeting to say forward this to Jessica as our you know initial input or or maybe we'll decide we need to invite her to a meeting after she's looked at then her come back and join us and make her comments that might be a shorter plan yeah um if it's in word if you get it in a Word document what you can do is you can do the um you know the markup editing and you can just turn off the markup like just there's a there's a little Swit thing you can switch it off and then you see what it would look like you know the final version yeah I think what we need to see is the final version so I so I'd like to be wrap my head around what it what the flow looks like you know uh when it's done um non green communities grant program stuff I the only update I got was the one I got verbally from Frank today which said that he thinks that stuff is just about done and it looks like uh you know if he gets it done it will be presented and uh uh mrpc could put that into the U into our database and we'll be able to see what a reduction in uh in energy uh reduction in um time emissions uh will result from that on the next uh annual report that comes up yeah um okay um topics not reasonbly expected by the chair before the meeting we uh before the meeting we we became aware uh Kathy that uh there's been activity changing outdoor lights at spaldi which we have not been involved with it appears that something's going on there uh Michael yeah so um one concern is that there's some new lights that don't come for to this is something that has been repeatedly discussed with Rise um I mean as recently is a few months ago I can't remember you know we had discussion about some of the upcoming projects and I I kept reminding Frank that they have to they have to be full cut off lights they have to conform to General bylaw um and he acknowledged that and said they would um now I see some new lights at SP at spoing school I don't know what project you know if this is just something the school put in or it's related to the projects that rises you know I gu ask I think I think a place to start I'll send send a text to Frank and ask them if they've been involved in any outside lights it's called we know work on and he will say yes or no right we got a point to go he says no I'll send a text to the facilities manager from the school middle SE right and ask them if there's been any recent notifications and you can answer yes or no and if he says yes I says well I could you know say I'd like to refer you to Brown who can tell you what's wrong with that okay how how's that work I mean I you may want to go through the enforcement you know process tell whoever it is in here that you can't do that in yeah I haven't had much luck with that well of course we have a new building inspector who um I never talked to and you you know the previous one was not Cooperative with enforcing at least that bylaw I don't know about other bylaws um even after the the select board basically said you know you're obligated to enforce this I they did rule that way and as did the zoning board um but shortly after that happened you resigned I I don't know what happened but we now have a new anyway it would be easier you know that would be it be a shame if this was my introduction to that guy over schools CU I would we have do I'd rather be saying thank you for all the work you've done and and uh we'd like to P to working with you in the future now we got to say the lights are screwed I think I've had you know I will say I've had some corespondence um not related to activities of this committee but some time ago I actually contacted both the business manager I forget her name Nancy hind right I contacted her and then she kind of got me together with the facilities person um and basically my concern was you know the sign which as you know I'm not a fan of um was the one Saving Grace of it is that they have agreed they agreed to have it on until 900 pm and no later and then you know I started to see it on all night and I brought that to their attention and apparently it was a malfunction or something um and it was correct but uh so that's so I have had that one contact with the facilities person whose name unfortunately I cannot remember right now maybe new anyway we have them because um slel that was that was the first time I really had any interaction with with with Eric was that when we were trying to expedite work but it turns out the work we were experting was actually at the school and town had no control so he had to be the inter section you know with the with the school and and I began to see his emails back and for with the facilities manager there uh our just ta probably never talk with the facilities manager over there I would assume that had no reason to but he does now maybe we should make it his first contact with you uh open public forum we got nothing uh the uh we have pre-reserved a meeting room here on the 13th of November that's a Wednesday 7 PM does that work for should be fine yeah okay hey one little other thing I'll mention Topic's not you know planned um so I guess probably we all got I know I got the uh Community aggregation uh got that so it looks like um now everybody has uh three options you know there's the default and then there's the slightly cheaper one where you just do the state minimum as far as um renewable energy and then there's 100% I was very surprised at the small differences in cost I mean 100% renewable energy it's like not even one penny a kilowatt hour extra so they made it go into four instead of three 13 you know inste 14 inste 13 you know but yeah I know what you mean uh so you know for myself I'm thinking might as well get 100% renewable although I actually no longer buy electricity from Unitil because I have solar but I guess I guess I still could I've been on next stamp for about six months almost eight months and uh it it was okay you know 12% off yeah it it's not not huge but it's something right and it was 100% solar I was using all solar electricity so that that was satisfying to me um the rate that I was paying is like like invisible because because the uh next stamp bill is just a bill it says this is how much this is how much dollars in credit to they don't mention kilowatt hours anywhere on the bill not there you can't tell what you're what you're paying for kilowatt hour you got to go to Uno to figure out how much electricity Ed and then go back to the you can't just get it from from one it's not it's not a one bill system um I've been paying uh well another one good thing is that I can pay next stamp with my uh credit card and I get you know a rebate from the credit card you get like 2% off my electricity because I'm paying credit card right yeah that's nice you know you tell I think if I read right I think Unitil is giving that option now well I think well they would have to against the other so did you guys get something on the on the agregation there was a mailing that I assume went to everybody every household yeah you should have it I should have it and what did it what your electric supplier is is unit un of course and it came maybe within the past week there were two one was like a a preview like hey soon you're GNA get a detailed letter just one yeah I think I got that one yeah and then the detail letter came maybe just a few days ago maybe uh yeah so the rate is is less than I'm paying unal paying less than I'm paying next damp but I have to cancel next damp which they said takes UH 60 to 90 days before I can apply to get on to the uh Town plant yeah I didn't realize that otherwise it you know would would have dumped next 10 six months ago but I I think I too I think I can I can get still stay with 100% solo and you know save money it's got to be like three or four cents less than I'm pain for kilowatt hour I was surprised that the state minimum is 62% renewable energy how not a lot yeah I mean that is a lot I I didn't realize it was that much I don't comp it's it's like the minimum on our in that sheet right the 62 was the minimum they showed right A lot of people aren't using any any solar unless the is that they saying the National Grid and un find 62% that's 62% of the I mean I don't something doesn't add things aren't that good with adoption they couldn't come up with that much for one thing um it's not only solar it's renewable energy so I don't know whether like nuclear does nuclear count no not but there's a lot of water Hydro hydroelectric I don't all right all right uh I need a a move to a German y that's where we're headed I'll move to adjourn the meeting uh second third all in favor I I well I guess we got to do it one at a time Mike I I hi on all right we are aour