Thursday, Mar. 8, 2007
Present: Russ Heissner, Pam
Harty, John Tzimorangas, Brian Phillips, Rob Baynes.
Minutes of Jan. 11 (last
meeting) voted on and accepted.
Russ: Rob needs
to post these minutes as "draft, not approved yet".
Pam: April
4 meeting on wind project siteing. "Wind 101" class. Short Q&A panel. Putting a wind monitoring
tower up at Hingham Transfer station (dump).
Russ: Get
involved with other groups? Is this our
mission? Do we want to be 'hands on'
with projects?
Brian: Are
we going to build something with our own hands?
Pam: How
should we 'own the turf' for financial selection for projects? e.g. recommend specific
vendors ? Maybe Rob works on the
residential building codes part, I do residential solar?
John: What
if we follow Russ's current agenda, then we look at the 'city of
Russ: part
of this is outreach to the other town committees, e.g. recycling/waste.
Brian: Rob
had a good point. This committee only
runs for 18 months. We need a solid end
product: our town's energy policy.
Rob: Then
the town can vote on our policy, to put it into law, practice adoption, etc.
Russ:
Times, actions, policies then implementation.
John: I
have
Russ: Let's
go through our year agenda. Put goals
and time guesses against our mission.
Then we will have to go to other committee's meetings to get buy in. We have to write warrants for policy changes.
Rob: What
does it cost to do a town meeting warrant?
Advisory -> Selectman vote on it.
Russ: We
may want to add to the agenda to have REACH come in to speak to us and look at
what we are doing.
Pam: REACH
told the wind group about a contest within the schools.
John: It's
a way to get people involved with our mission.
Rob: How
do we get all these other 'green' committee working for us?
John: Add
a 'develop implementation plan as required' bullet point to each of the agenda
items. Let's put this agenda out there.
Russ: Add
final agenda item (our goal). 'Finalize
comprehensive Hingham Energy Policy plan and present to town'
Brian: Is
this committee going to do 'something' like look at the school system energy
usage and try to find ways to save energy?
Is one of us going to do that on this committee, or do we just recommend
a way of doing that?
Russ: What
will probably happen is our final recommendations will produce actions for
future committees or projects.
John: Russ
is right, it goes in a handbook, and we need a formula. Here I have the school energy audits. The school committee needs to budget and pay
for any changes.
Russ:
Maybe the handbook describes how to get grants, rebates, etc.
Brian:
It's better to produce a guideline than do the work ourselves. After this committee we may implement some of
these changes.
Russ: This
may roll into another committee. If we
implement new building codes we have to help the existing building committee
with education and implementation. We
are the 'policy' now, 'actions' later.
Brian: OK,
I'm feeling better about our mission now.
(His original question is answered)
John: We
can take parts of these other policies that apply to us.
Pam: Do
they (
John:
Where are we going to get our numbers and facts?
Rob: What
would it take to have HMLP have a rebate program for residential green
programs?
John: This
has come up at the light board. It's a
.02 cent charge per kWH (Rob
verify this number) for other municipalities.
There is a big fund to pay for these rebates from NSTAR via MTC, which
is state-wide.
Russ:
Rob's idea should come under our agenda 'capital incentives' program. Add rebates.
Pam: Where
do our standards come from?
Russ: We
establish our own standards, and then we benchmark them against other
towns. I think this way works best.
John: Any
other questions before I make a motion?
(silence ensues) I move we accept the mission statement and
goals with changes of adding a bullet item that says 'develop implementation
plan as required' to each item. And
adding a final document we produce.
Voted and all accepted.
Russ: I
will make those changes to the agenda doc and will send it to Rob. Rob will post on web site, since it’s
approved.
John: Each
committee chair has to write status update for the town annual report. Russ will do this.
Russ: Last
item for our March agenda: consider renewable energy standards. This item covers the next 4 meetings. We can go out and get standards from other
sources, for our next meeting.
John: Pull
electric out, I have all that data, what else do you want?
Russ:
Incorporate bio-diesel as standard fuel.
Push for more ethanol in our gas mix.
Electric power and renewable fuels.
John:
Could we get consumption figures from the town fuel depot? We need those figures. David should be able to get the numbers. Ask Betty Foley for municipal gas and oil
usage.
Russ: Rob
look at
Rob: Percentage
of other renewable power sources, like solar, waste to energy, etc?
Russ: Yes,
add this data to your research. Action
items:
- Usage figures for oil, gas, elec.
- Everyone will gather renewable energy data
from other communities.
- Other items for next meeting?
- Start talking about green building
codes. Gather this data also.
Brian:
Action plan? Assignments
for individuals? We've done
nothing but talk so far. :) How about a general sequence of work.
John: This
will probably come out of reviewing other energy plans.
Brian:
Perhaps we can all work in parallel on our plan.
John: When
we list the committees that exist, then we can assign each person a committee
to go visit and interface with.
Rob: For
building codes, we can review the new
Russ: Next
meeting date: April 5, 7:30pm
Next
meeting agenda:
- Review of standards from other towns.
- Review of green building codes.
- Work plan to develop specific energy plan
document.
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Rob to do:
- post agenda doc
Russ sends to me on the web site.
- post minutes as
"draft, not yet reviewed or approved".
- post next meeting time and agenda.
- email HMLP and town web
site managers, and town clerk.
- city of
- city of
- city of
- call Ginny in building office and make an
appointment to talk to Dick Morgan about green building codes.