June 16, 2026 – Energy and Climate Committee – Video & Transcript

June 16, 2026 - Energy and Climate Committee

Autoscroll:

So, this is a meeting of the Energy and Climate Committee. This meeting is being recorded and will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as practicable afterwards. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, the meeting is conducted via remote access in accordance with applicable law of the meeting. No in-person attendance is permitted. You may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found on the weyland.ma.us website. So, I'm going to call the meeting to order and note in attendance committee members, Vice Chair, Neal Gordon, Commander Tom Siaka, Committee Member Clovis Schaff, and Student Representative Gabby Swacker. All right. And Associate Member John Harper, Sustainability Coordinator, Olivia Lizardo. And who's our Zoom owner? Is it you, Olivia, or Robbie? It's me, Robbie. All right, Robbie. Thanks. And you know our protocol to just bring everybody in. Okay. Just ask if there's any public comment.
Okay. Kavya is studying for finals. God bless her. So, over to you, Kavya. And the one thing I asked her, John, is she attended a Mass Energize workshop on working with students. They talked about things that I thought were some pretty cool things that were discussed there. And I'm just curious which of those, if any, you know, interested in you. So, over to you, Kavya.
So, Green Tea has ended because this is like the last week of school and we don't meet over the summer. But we've done a lot of work on the garden and we planted dahlias for our sale next year because we have a dahlias sale every year. Um, for the Mass Energize, well, for the Mass Energize meeting, I was there. Um, I didn't see anything that Green Team could necessarily help out on because I think a lot of them were scheduled for middle schoolers. I did see the Youth Action Challenge. Yeah, Youth Action Challenge. Yeah. I brought that up to Green Team this year. I just don't think we have time to do it. It has to be someone doing it outside of the club. Green Team? Yeah. How would we? So, this was something Mass Energize ran, guys. There was state funding and I think that funding will continue. And, um, they worked with 10, mostly high schools. The team you heard from was from middle school, Kavya. That was the one middle school. And, um, they, each team, youth team picked a topic to work on that was engaging their community around some clean energy action. So, the team that won was from Harvard, the Bromfield School. Then they promoted home solar and put on a big session. 80 people attended. 10 people signed up for solar. Um, other teams, um, just promoted very different things. But it was all with the community engagement piece as opposed to, like, internally facing with their school. Um, and the, the winners got, like, $5,000, which they could then use in their school for green things. And the second place got, like, $3,000. The next one got $1,000. And then they, they had staff support. So, it wouldn't just fall on, like, the green team advisor. There was someone at Mass Energize who could advise them. And there was some training and they could call them. And, um, um, so I would love it if, for next year, we could think about, so you think green team members are just too busy? How, how else we could promote it in the school? I mean, there's an environmental science AP class, Kavia. There's, uh, you know, I think students could get community service hours for this, potentially.
I think if we can get community service hours, that would help. Because then underclassmen would probably want to do it. So, they can get off-campus privileges. Yep. Yeah. I think, I forgot what time it was, but I remember people were, like, oh, like, we can't do it because of this, when I brought it up. In the time for the training. Because mostly they worked on their own. There were, like, a couple of sessions they had to attend. I don't know, maybe you need to recruit more people for the green team. How, how can we help you?
Um, environmental science AP class, uh, do they do something like special projects for extra credit, or? Uh, I'm not sure, because I'm not, I'm not in that class. You can't take it as a sophomore. So, I'm not exactly sure what they do. Well, I'm wondering if, if something like that is a possibility. If, if they could do papers suggesting things we could do in Weyland to, for climate adaptivity. I mean, I, I mean, I would love them to apply for this challenge, because then they're going to get support, Tom, not just from us. Like, they're going to actually not just write a paper, they're going to do some, you know, they're going to engage with the community. Um, Okavi, do you know who the, the teacher is for that? I think it's Miss McGuinn, but I'm not entirely sure. All right. Um, is that on the website, you think, or how do we figure that out? I think it, I think you could probably go to the website and figure it out, because it's an AP class.
All right. Does someone willing, um, could someone, I don't. If you want, I can, I can do some emailing tomorrow and get whoever's email it is. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. It's just, you know, the person who's teaching the AP environmental science class, but it honestly could be someone teaching like a civics class or something. Maybe when school's over, I may know Allison, Miss, Miss Aguchi is still the principal, right? Yes. Yeah. So I know Allison pretty well. So once things calm down, I could email Allison and just, um, just say how, because Sarah's now, I've emailed Sarah a couple of times and she hasn't gotten back to me. She's usually so responsive. She must just be so busy. Um, she's still your advisor, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. Now, will that be great, Olivia? Maybe, I know Olivia, I don't think you, you listened to this session on the youth programming. No, I didn't. Okay. Um, okay. Maybe you could find their emails and you and I can send them an email saying we'd like to figure out how to engage better with high school. Sure. Sounds good. Okay. Okay. Other updates from you, Kami? Uh, no. Okay. Should we let her leave and study for finals? Um, I don't know what we're going to do. So, I guess it's, I think, uh, we'll let you know, just look at your Waylon email. We're deciding about summer meetings. We often typically don't meet in August, but there's an application due. So, the July meeting, I think, is on a date when, uh, John and I are out of town, but, um, other people can meet and I can work offline on this application thing. So, anyway, are you around this summer or are you going somewhere, Kami? Uh, I'm around. I can probably join. Okay. Cool. Sounds great. Good luck with final. Bye. Thank you. Bye, Kami. Good luck. Good luck.
Okay. I think I'm going to flip this on the odd chance, Livia, that I need to leave early. That's fine. Yep. Is that okay? Go for it. Okay. Um, and then remind me to take this vote about Paul. Everybody remind me. Um, revised charge. Uh, we talked about this last time. Neil and I worked on something. The committee weighed in. I sent it to Carol Martin. Uh, she called me yesterday. Uh, she had, she's, she's behind on some things. Um, she said she would look at it. Some of the texts we wanted to delete is like standard text they use for every committee. So we'll, we'll navigate that, Neil. Um, but, uh, um, I got some confusing feedback from her. And in an earlier call, she said to me, I want to make sure the associate members have like some broad area of concentration, not super narrow. But then yesterday she said, I want to make sure the associate members have very narrow portfolio. So I said, I don't think we care that much because we're really such an open committee. Like, even if someone's not on the committee and they want to help us just come to the meetings. Like, we're just not that, you know, we're not that rigid. We're not regulatory. So she's supposed to get back to me. Um, the thing I want to do is Paul Dale has, um, agreed to re-up. Um, under Carol's current configuration, she would prefer that that associate position have a, um, a charge, like an area of focus. Um, so if she would like to re-appoint Paul and they voted, I think it may be even tonight, uh, today's month, what day is today? Tuesday? They might've voted it last night, but I think we should take a vote. Um, the, um, um, sorry, I'm just trying to find the email I used to send her this thing, um, yesterday. Did I copy you, Abby? I'm not, I can't remember. I mean, not Abby, um. Oh, Olivia. Yeah, Olivia, that's what I mean, sorry. No, you're fine. Um, I don't think so, but I'll, I'll confirm right now. No, no, no, no, I don't think, I, I think I did. Nope, I just, um, I did, uh, all right, and then she said a double check page. Charge does say ECC may also have non-voting associate members. We'll get Paul reappointed tonight. So what I said to her was that I thought, this is the sentence I have, that Paul's special part would be provide support in our outreach to promote heat pumps and household clean energy actions. Remember, he was trying to find that list of people with oil and stuff. So can I, I'm going to read this to you, um, Olivia. So I would like someone to make a motion. I will read this, that we reappoint, we, we, uh, we, we seek help to, and then here's the quote, provide support in our outreach to promote heat pumps and household clean energy actions. Have you, have you spoken with Paul is? Yeah, he's fine. Yeah, it's fine. Okay. Yeah, it's fine. I haven't spoken with him, but I've spoken to him many times about it, so it's fine. That sounds like a great job for Paul. I move that we adopt that language. Okay. I need a second.
Um, well, I'll second it, but I want to talk to it. Okay. That's fine. That's a second. Now speak to it. All right. Um, I, a number of us are into heat pumps. No, no, no, but it's just, but you're on the committee already. You can do whatever you want to do, but if I'm going to add Paul, I have to have a sentence about what he's going to do. It's not like there's somebody who's going to hit a buzzer if he says something else. Right. Right. I just have to have a reason to be able to appoint him, Tom. Right. No, no monopolies here. Yeah. Well, I'll just make the comment. I see Paul as having more expertise in the kind of political contacts and contacts with other environmental organizations. I agree with you. I just did not think that would be palatable to the select board as a reason for adding him as an associate member. Okay. Fine. This is really just to get him pointed. Okay. Um, all right. I'm going to take any other further comment on this. I have a related common element. Yep. Paul's listed as an associate right now on the site, along with Kavya. I'm listed as a non-voting member. I know. That's all getting cleaned up in the way what I wrote for Carol. So whatever language she wants to use, I could care less. Which is fine by me. I just was intrigued about, oh, did I get a promotion or a demotion? No, I don't know. She has a way they want to do it. And whatever they call this class of people, everyone will have the same title. So, okay. And I think I'm a non-voting member as well. Are you? Okay. Then maybe Steve is. Yeah. So I don't know. I think they're all moving it to whatever she wants to call her. I know. It's true. She was just a regular rank and file member. Yeah. I think Clovis is a member. That's what I thought, too. You can try to scream before me. All right, guys. Let's, um, I'm going to have to sign off. So, um, are we, can I take a vote on this? Neil, how do you vote? Aye. Uh, Tom. Aye. Ellen, aye. Clovis apparently is a real voting member. So how do you vote, Tom, Clovis? Aye, yeah. Great. So that's where we are on that. So, Olivia, if you can record the motion and the vote, I will, um, and just send it to me, just that little blurb later today in an email, I will send it to Carol. Sounds good. Okay, great. Thank you. Um, plug-in updates. Um, we're still part of this multi-town plug-in thing. The next webinar is Wednesday night, the 17th on electric vehicles. We promoted it in the Energized Wayland newsletter. We've posted it in Facebook and Nextdoor. I just posted again in Facebook. So if anybody's on Facebook and is willing to add a comment to the post saying this is great, it's being pitched as gas is super expensive, EVs, if you're charging in, in our area on the basic Eversource rate and we are cheaper, um, is the equivalent of like $2.80 a gallon. Um, so, and obviously it costs less to maintain. So the whole pitch is really around money. Um, so I don't know how many signups that we have. Uh, Anna from Green Energy Consumers Alliance, who's terrific, is giving the talk. John is going to be one of the testimonials. Michael Delman will be a testimonial. And I forget who the third one was. Why did I ask? I can't remember. Somebody else. Um, and, uh, you know, last I checked, I think there were 1,254 households in Wayland that had an EV or a plug-in EV. We have 4,800 households. So that's, you know, almost one in four. Right? So. Do we have data over time at this point? Uh, no. We do, I haven't looked, I don't know how far back we can do it over time. I think we can go back over the last couple of years. But if you go to the Climate Tracker, which I've sent around many times, I will send it around again. You can go on that website and see if you want to look at it longitudinally. Yeah. I just think that'll be, whatever that data allows, that'll be a nice update for when we do the update on the overall sustainability plan. Great. Agreed. So that's the last. If you're going to make a pitch about economics, you really ought to mention at least the fact that if you have a heat pump and you're on the heat pump rate in the winter, then you're paying really peanuts to charge your car because it covers all your electric. So Tom, get on Facebook, make that comment on my post. Okay. I can't, I can't do all of these things, guys. So if you, if you have a suggestion, you have to be willing to act on it. But I, I agree. I think. That's about the length of the post. That's it. That's it. You have to do one sentence. It'll take you four seconds. So do it. I think it's a good point. Go for it. Or somebody else. I'm, I'm in Florida taking care of my elderly mom for the next three days. So I'm trying to. Sorry about that. She's out of the hospital. That was two weeks ago. Now we're, now we're stable and trying to have fun. So plug-in is good. Um, Mass Energize has applied for funding to continue plug-in and actually bring on another cohort of six communities more south of Boston. So it's been very beneficial for us because they organize these webinars. We just have to promote them. Um, Energize Wayland. I'm going to switch to Energize Wayland. Energize Wayland had a meeting. I think you're on now. And I always forget. Tom was not. Can't remember about Neil. Um, and we, Energize Wayland decided that we want to have an event on September 23rd. Olivia Markham calendar. This would be, Tom, an event. Come meet our heat pump coaches and our energy bill checkup coaches. Um, feedback we've gotten from many, many other towns is when you do heat pump, sometimes people aren't ready to like go right to a heat pump, but they were like, why is my bill so high? So just doing an energy bill checkup, like, let's look at your bill. Like, do you qualify for the R2 rate? Are you on the aggregation? Um, um, and now we can, you know, if, uh, look at, um, your other charges before you get into, um, some of the other things, um, that can be done. Um, so the idea was to train a couple of folks in Wayland to do energy bill checkups. We actually thought it would be great if all of our heat pump coaches were also facile in helping people look at their bills because it sometimes comes up. And some people like, I'm sure Tom, you're very good at this, but there's, um, uh, mass energize is now created. There's like a, all in energy and this wonderful woman, Sierra from the AG's office says a lot energy bill checkup. And I was at a session where she was training people, including me. Uh, she's got a nice, like, what was this? Like 45 minutes hour webinar, but, um, mass energize is making a page for it. Now you'd say, uh, there's some fact sheets and FAQs and it does sex the bill about what all the charges are. And then if you were like, oh, I don't really understand that you could say the webinar and you say, oh, minutes seven through 11 cover this topic. Minutes 14. So if you just wanted to hear more about it. Um, so the idea would be, we haven't, you know, other towns have done like a heat pump pizza party. Natick's done it many times as has, uh, Acton. Jillian just did a heat pump popsicle party in Natick. So we thought we just, you know, we did these years ago. We got like, remember we sold out at the library, John, remember we, they, they, they booted us cause we were over 80 people. I don't think we'll get those kinds of numbers, but sometimes be nice if it was in person. So we would love our heat pump coaches to be at that event. We'll try and do it at the COA cause it's a nice building. So Anne is trying to nail down the date and the COA location. Sorry. Um, quick, quick thought, um, Mara in the COA, she helps advise people with their energy bills. So maybe, um, if you want to work with, I don't know if you want to work together and we could get a handout together, I could send it over to her and maybe she could hand that out to people that are frequently coming in with questions. Yeah, actually I want to do Mara's on my list. I want Mara to take this hour training. I want Mara to be trained to go over energy bills and we'll have lots of handouts for people for the COA. So Mara's fantastic. I agree. She's a terrific asset. We've worked with her for years. Um, so Anne is supposed to be reaching out to Julie and Mara at the COA to see if that day will work. So stay tuned and then we'd love as many members of the committee to be trained to do energy bill checkups. Um, cause it'd be nice for the committee members to show up at this event, to have lots of people that people can talk to, you know, uh, even, you know, if somebody got showed up and want to talk to about solar, you know, John could be there to answer some questions. I didn't think we'd bring vendors or anybody. Um, I have been in touch with Kit Wu, as many of you know, from the Laminar Collective, um, who does big buys for heat pumps and pricing. And my last email with him from the other day, cause they got written up in Canary Media for all their great work. Um, he said, we'll have a new pricing for the fall. This is really mini split pricing. Um, and with some vendors. So, uh, you know, Kit is always happy to come to an event or send one of his folks. Um, but they, uh, they definitely have some interesting pricing out, out there. And they're, whoever they're kind of identifying as reasonable price, they are really inspecting those installations to make sure good work is getting done. Um, so I think it could be, uh, so Energize Whalen would like to do it. I would love the committee to feel like that's also a good idea and the committee to participate. So thoughts? Uh, I've been doing bill analyses for decades, uh, in one role or another. I'm, uh, yes, it's where I, I constantly read on these, you know, like next door sites. Oh, my bill is so terrible. And I didn't do anything last month. And it just must be Eversource or a bunch of evil people, you know, that kind of stuff. And I'm happy to talk to people and look at the realities of that. Um, so if there's some event, tell me when to show up. Okay, great. And we'll make sure all the committee has all the FAQs and fact sheets, just as background and the webinar to train. So Tom, I think you know it, but there are some like very, very arcane charges on the distribution side that I have not committed to memory. I have to look at the fact sheet for those, um, um, um, what about others? Uh, Neil, Clovis, what do you guys think? Great idea. Okay. I'm happy to participate as well. I attended the one in Nalik, um, and something very nice that they had done. They had a big room. They had use cases, very, the spread of use cases from residents. I can't remember if that was for coaches or the homeowners, but you know, it was a huge, um, posters with lots of pictures and the summary of the design. And that was, so people were coming into individual, um, posters and then they were asking questions. Oh, I love that idea. I think that's a great idea. It seems like we get our heat pump coaches to help produce a couple of those. What do you think, Clovis? Yeah. On my side, I, I'd love to have residents. I, I could be one use case. Uh, it's no problem to produce pictures. Yep. Uh, then for relevant houses. So Tom, maybe, you know, something I never had is a partial install with a backup with gas or oil. I don't know if you've got use cases you can think about like that. Maybe your, your house then or. Well, my, my house is a hybrid, um, sure. I could lay out my, my bills. So Clovis, do you want to, and, and we, we switched years ago. Our gas system is a hybrid gas system. So we're not completely heat pump, but you know, we, at the set point, I think at 26 degrees, it's an older, you know, system. Heat pumps gotten better, but you know, it switches over automatically, um, at that lower temp. But maybe Clovis, if you, why don't you reach out to Steve, Tom, Anne, and Paul Dale, if you wouldn't mind. And like, if we, if you guys come up with three use cases and, you know, people could just print however you want to do it. Like, the problems, like, however you thought it was helpful from Jillian, like the problem, right? The, what, what was. I've got, I've got the pictures, I think, from the booths. So, so this would be like mid September. So I think it'd be good to get some, um, people lined up to do that, huh? So Tom, your house is one. Clovis sounds like your house is another. Uh, I know Anne has coached a lot of people, um, and Steve Bright too. So I think three that are kind of different would be fine. What do you guys think?
You're willing to take this on Clovis? You just have to bug people to put it together. And I'm, I'm thinking.
Clovis, how can you be, how can you be on this when the France is playing Senegal? I hope you have it on in the background for World of Fame. Of course I have, yeah. There was a penalty, uh, potential. Because I have it on the back. Actually, I just want to say our youngest son is at the game in the Meadowlands. Nice. Yeah, yeah. Um, I was like, wow, Clovis is dedicated because France, Senegal, on, playing right here. Um, um. Okay. So I'm thinking of two residents, recent residents that I'm going to reach out to them if they would be interested in participating. I like to have residents and not coaching, presenting. Uh, so it's less experts talking about cases. But yeah, going back is, I guess we've got enough cases between us. Yeah, reach out to Steve, right, too, Clovis. Because when we've done the heat pump webinars, Steve, we've had like three people do these same testimonials many times. I know they're like very, very good at describing their homes. And one guy like had oil, one gal had oil and now they're totally heat pump. And another person did, you know, kept some oil for the coldest of days. So, um, yeah, reach out to Steve. And I think that'd be great if you, happy to support you. But I will be willing to take on the energy bill coaching part and get more people trained. But I'd love to hand this part off. And I think it'd be great if we had, you know, residents just talk for five minutes about, you know, what they did. And then people could come up to them, um, a little bit. We can introduce our heat pump coaches. And then the thought is there just would be stations. Okay. I want help with my energy bill. I want to talk about heat pumps. And it would be kind of a little bit loose. How was it in Nadek?
It was similar. Um, so they didn't have the bill, uh, readout, uh, option. They had a weatherization person. I can't remember. You got to watch it. Did you just, you got to look at your television, your screen. I'm just saying, you got to look. They'll play it again for you. I was, I was, uh, on a call with one of our sons and it was on the screen for me. And I went, oh, and he was like 30, his, his, in New York, his television was like 30 seconds behind me. He's like, mom, you cannot say anything. So anyway, host will be happy now. Anyway, so what. I call a conflict of interest. This is just distraction. This is just distraction. Clovis is a French soccer guy. You got to honor it. Um, so what were, how did they do it, Clovis?
Uh, so the extra station they had, I remember, was a weatherization contractor. Oh, okay. So Olivia, let's get our, um, mass save vendor to be there too.
Yes. That sounds like a plan. I'll reach out to her. Okay. I think it's September 23rd, but reach out to Anne. Anne is supposed to be nailing this down. So, okay.
Okay. Does that sound good to people? I saw it. Yeah. There you go. Um, um, I think we were trying to think about what time. I can't remember what we agreed on.
It's, it's impossible. I mean, also we have a long enough time. People can come show up later. So I think we were maybe going to do, I don't know. Do you guys have a view on what time is good?
Seven to eight 30. People can eat, get home from work, eat dinner. But you are assuming evening, I assume? Yes. Yes. Yes. So seven to eight 30. I think we were thinking. Yeah. Seven to eight, something like that. Okay. Okay. Good. All right. So that is the Energize Wayland big update. Um, so I think I don't have anything on multifamily and we did the Paul thing. So that is, I think that's all I had. So happy to hand it over to Olivia and just would ask, I think you're going to get through all of these, but if you could put a higher on the list, the climate leader funding and what you and Mike are thinking and how, oh, the last thing we'll really, John mentioned something that has been our agenda that's fallen off that I think we made a mistake on. This has gotten more complicated with Julie leaving. We said this spring, we were going to begin our efforts to update our climate action plan. And we kind of asked people who had written their sections to take a look at, um, how we're doing on each of those actions. Um, and Bill was going to make a little chart so you could fill it in. And so like, John, like I did the building one, I could say, you know, all new construction was supposed to be fossil fuel free. That was like one of our things. Answer done. Like our COA building, fossil fuel. The others are like renovations are supposed to X, Y, and Z. And I think we're, we're not perfect on that one. I think we're like sort of good, but not great. Um, so what would be like as people, John wrote a section, Tom, you wrote a couple of sections. Would it be helpful to have like a framework chart, um, for you to fill in? Like here was the action item. And it's either like, honestly, it could be a dropdown, you know, done in progress, uh, not yet started or no longer relevant. Like, like I want to make the argument, like we should take this off. And then there'd be a column for comments. Would that be a helpful way to do it? Because I'm thinking, you know, in the fall, I'd really like to have an in-person meeting is my suggestion where we do a little strategic planning. Maybe by then, Mike, it's unclear to me what's happening to Julie's position, but I think as a committee, we should still be, we wrote the plan without any staff. So I think we should still be thinking about how we update this. I think a chart makes sense. I don't have anything to put in it, but I think a chart made sense. Okay. Is your thinking that work would be beginning between now and that meeting or that meeting is the kickoff? Well, I think between now and September, I'd ask people to look at their sections and fill in the chart with each of their actions. You remember there was like stuff the town would do and stuff people would do. And you would just take each of the items, put it in the chart, and then give us your judgment about where we are on that one. And I think Anne wrote the EV one. I'm sure I could get Anne to do this for us, you know, and then that would be a good thing for us to do to share at that first meeting to say, is this really true? Is this the baseline? Obviously, we'd give it to Olivia and Mike to make sure, you know, they agree, but it's kind of like, here's the baseline of where we think we are relative. To what we said we were going to do, right? Now, one comment is if we do updates, it sort of locks us into the same priority list or focal point that we had before. It can be harder to come up with different themes to the report. So the kind of broader question in my mind is, why are we doing the update? What's the purpose of that update? It's easy to say this is how far we've gotten and there's nothing wrong with that. But I guess the question would be, it's probably worth the conversation about what do we want to do with this information and who are we trying to reach? Because that may suggest a different format or different goals. So I would agree this is not to help us create a new version of the plan. I think this would be helpful for like whoever we hire. What do we say we're going to do? Where are we? Where have we missed the mark on what we said we were going to do two years ago? And then it's a discussion, I think, about how do we create new goals? This is what we said we were going to do and this is what happened. I just think the committee should know that before you then say, okay, now how do we think about what we want to do? Maybe some things just turned out to be way harder than we thought they were. And, you know, the juice isn't worth the squeeze, right? And other things have come up about important things to do since then. So I think, you know, we could then first have a meeting to say, where are we? And do these broad categories even still make sense? Yep. That's why I'm thinking doing a lot of work that's pure update might come out of that meeting because then we know what we're focusing on. But if we're changing directions in some fashion, then it may or may not be relevant unless it's just this background context. I think it's really back down. Go ahead, Tom. I think I made the comment the last time we talked about this that we need a lot more emphasis on adaptation because, you know, the world's going to hell quicker than all of us had hoped. And there's a whole nother area. I did think about this a bit. But there's a whole nother area that I think we need to add, which I could call, I don't know, grid support, maybe. John raised it originally as batteries. And I think that's one example. But I just had a time of use meter installed in my house last week. And if you haven't had one yet, you will very soon. And that's an example of an enabling technology which will allow grid support. I mean... Right. So this is the conversation we should have in September. What are the other areas? Because I'm just saying for me and for the select board, John, if we're going to write a new plan, we're going to go to the select board to have it endorsed. The first question they're going to ask me is, where did we come out on the old plan? And what's the connective tissue between the old plan and the new plan? So I think, you know, we should know how we did. And then we should open it up to what do these categories make sense? Are there new categories? How do we think about what we do next? And I think it'd be great for Olivia, who probably doesn't know what we said, you know, where we are on these things. I know Julie was doing some of this, or weren't you, Olivia, doing some of this on where we were on the plan? Yes. So I was actually going to add, I think something, especially from town side, it's obviously harder on the residential side. I think going through and marking what's a quantifiable goal and then kind of what's just something that we want to achieve as a group. If it's a quantifiable goal that can be done by the town, I can find the answers and the information. So I think before the September meeting, I'll pick through the camp. I'm going to be doing our annual green communities report anyways. So that gets the town's, you know, emissions and everything like that. So I'm going to pick through and I can make notes. Did Paul put that chart together? It was Paul or Bill. I'm sorry. Bill was supposed to do it. He hasn't done it. I'll just do it. It literally will take me five minutes to do it. Okay. Yeah. Because I think just breaking things down into goals and then I can kind of pick through and write where we're at. I think that would answer a lot of questions too, which would probably help. All right. I will do it not in the next week or two, but I will do it in the next three weeks for ECC report update and take me less time to do it than kind of explain it to somebody. So I will do that. I'm going to make it a Google sheet and an Excel attachment. And ideally, if people could fill in a Google sheet, then everyone could have access to one doc. That would be preferable. So hopefully people can work with that format. If not, you can do an Excel thing and someone will have to then copy it into the Google sheet. So it sounds like we're all motivated to kind of keep thinking about where we want to be in terms of a plan.
Okay. All right. That was my last one. So over to you, Olivia. And maybe you could do homeworks and maybe go to the Climate Leaders Fund in case I have to sign off early. Yeah, we'll start with Climate Leaders. So Mike Fah and I met with Dylan Patel from DOER, and there's a group of Amoresco engineers that are going to be supporting us on the Climate Leader application, doing some studies on the middle school. That's going to be our primary focus. And after speaking with them, Dylan was on the call from DOER. So he was kind of telling us, reminding us that Climate Leaders is a one-shot application. You apply, receive the funding you receive, and then you don't apply again. So based off of that, we were going to do domestic hot water originally. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm confused. There's two pots of Climate Leader money. There's the $150K for planning, and then there's the up to $1.15 million for doing work. It has to be, the one-shot is for the doing work, but if you do apply for the planning, you could still apply for the doing later, right? Right. So I guess the doing is what I'm speaking to. So we were originally going to do domestic hot water. That was what Julie had drafted for Green School Works. We didn't receive it, but we kind of had some bones for that. So we were going to go with that. But unfortunately, materials have already been ordered for that for the middle school. So for that reason, we can't do domestic hot water because if it's already purchased, you can't receive funding for that project. So with that in mind, that was going to be a giant chunk of what the project would have been. So Dylan advised we hold off and apply in the spring instead of the end of September. The only good thing about this is either way, the project was going to take place in summer 2027 because we can't work on the school when the kids are in session. So even though we're going to be applying in February, it's still 2027 summer. Okay. So you said spring and you, so I thought the, go over the deadlines. First one, the next one is August. Yep. August is the first deadline. I meant August, sorry. The second one is February. So spring of 2027 and funds would come in, Dylan said, three months after applications are submitted. So it would be February, March, April, May. So summer 2027, we would be able to start a project. But could you, okay. And you could mobilize that fast? Well, working with Amaresco, like they'd be the ones doing the study and then doing the work. Okay. So why not apply in, what, so what is the project? I guess is the question. The project is still up in the air because of the lack of studies that's been done. It's going to be some type of HVAC upgrades, maybe some type of heat pump upgrades. But again, I'm really unsure because the person that we spoke to from Amaresco is just like, I cannot get you a project together by August. It's just not going to happen. So that's the reason that because he had mentioned these unit ventilators are all, although the useful life is longer, they're all breaking all the time. So he wants to replace these ones in individual classrooms and make them, are they, they're currently gas, Olivia? Currently the rooftop units are gas. I think we mentioned, again, I don't know what we're going to end up doing, but it was thrown around. We might do some mini splits on the roof for each individual classroom, I think. But I'm not sure what the plan is with that. Okay. So this makes sense. This makes sense to everybody else. Like, we don't know what we're going to do. So we can't apply in August. We'd have to apply in February, but you got to really. My question is, are we only thinking Amaresco? Like, did we talk to B2Q? We had a very good experience with them.
As of now, it seems like we're going with Amaresco. They work closely with us in the town building.
So, yeah, I think that's where Mike is thinking to work. Okay. So then I would just encourage you, Olivia, to work backwards. If you're going to have to do it in February, then that means, you know, by whatever, November, you have a pretty good idea of what you want to do, November, January, so you can actually write it up, right? So, and I think the committee would love to hear from Amaresco what they think, what they found and what they're thinking of proposing. Maybe they could come to the committee and just, because then, otherwise they brief you and then you brief us and then we ask you a question that you don't know the answer to. Like, it puts you in the middle in a way that's, you know, not so good for you. Right. No, I'm going to make a note of that. And I think probably, I don't know, December, our December meeting, it would be nice if we had someone come and just talk to the committee. Yeah, even November. November. Even November. Let's make it November. Like, what are you thinking at that point? Let's make them be done sooner just because we don't want a problem. So there's also like the 150K for planning. We didn't want to apply for anything, any studies. Amaresco is just going to do this on their own dime, right? Because then they'll get all the work. That's my understanding, but I'll make a note of that and I can confirm with Mike. Yeah, and my other question is, if you're working with Amaresco, do we have to, we don't have to compete it? Are they on a lit? Like, how can we just write them in? Like, contractually, are there any issues? I don't think so because I think we have, we've had like a long-term, we have an energy performance contract, I think, with them for 12. We've been working with them for the past like 12 years, they said, so I don't, I don't think we have to put it out to bid, but I can confirm. I think we should double check them. And we were all here when we started that contract and that was for stuff we did the audit. We got some, we got some rulings that allowed us to continue that contract and I don't know if this can still be done to that contract or it needs a new contract. So it's an important procurement question to ask. I just don't know. We should not assume. Let me ask Mike about that. Yeah, we don't want to get caught later going, oh shit, we needed to do blah, blah. Now we can't apply again. Okay. No, that's a good point. Yeah. Okay. How does that sound to other people?
What sound? To check? Not that we. Yes, we should do that. Yeah. And that we have to, we're not, we're just not ready for August. We'll just shoot for the February deadline. Right. Yeah. Kind of a bummer. Okay. Any other questions for Libby on this?
Nope.
Okay. Then I guess we'll move on to the other things I was going to talk about. Just homeworks update. Um, they are getting approval from the public safety building, um, to do some canvassing. So that'll happen in the summer, I believe in July. Um, and I did send them some Weyland heat pump coach materials to print out. So they'll be giving out that information while they're tabling at the transfer station, which I think is good. I did sign off on a second letter to be mailed out to residents. So that had, um, the best success. So hopefully we see another increase in home energy audit assessments. Um, but really that's it. I haven't touched base with, um, Rachel, the representative from homeworks in about two weeks. So I, I'm speaking with her this week. So hopefully, um, we get a little more information on how things are going. Do you have the current numbers that, what's the most recent numbers you have? Um, she didn't send them to me yet. Cause we haven't met, um, this, this week. Yeah. But the last time you met was the last time you met, what were the numbers?
Sorry, I didn't have that prepared. Let me see if I can find it. One second.
I would say summer time, sometime is not the greatest time to go door to door in Weyland cause a bunch of people, you know, are taking summer vacations and stuff. So if you were going to go door to door, I would think September would be more productive. Okay. I don't know how other people feel. Maybe that's. Yeah, absolutely. Half the people in town have got houses on the Cape or the vineyard or someplace. So, so they should do it after Labor Day.
Okay. They really want better, better results.
The last time we looked at the numbers, it was like a big bump right after the letter. Yeah. So, you know, maybe the next letter we'll get out of their bump. Yeah. Wasn't it like a hundred or I can't remember. It was more than 50, less than 300, um, maybe something like that. Well, you could always send it out afterwards. I think for these meetings, Livia, just sharing the most recent number years have would be a good, just expectation, you know? Okay. Um, I do have, so I have May here. Let me just share my screen quick. One second. Okay. Okay.
Okay. And you can see that.
Can you see my screen? Yes. Okay, great. Um, so in May, we've had 12 assessments so far, upcoming 27, and then weatherization appointments, nine. Okay. Pretty solid. How do they feel about these numbers? Um, I think, I think she seems happy with them. We definitely, like you guys were saying, this was the, um, the month that the mailer went out, so we're 51, and then we had eight upcoming, and then one organization, so 51 versus in May, we had, um, 12, so I think sending out the mailers is definitely the way to go, um, so I think sending out a second round of mailers will probably help us out. Well, it's interesting, because if you look at the thing there, you're right, it's mostly direct mail, but when it says partners, do we, do we know what that means? It, what does that mean? It could be Energize Whalen, the town, like, what does partners mean, the lead source? I mean, I know what the word means, but in the context of Whalen, what does that mean? Um, I don't know, so let me make a note, and I'll follow up with you guys. I'll talk to Rachel about that. Yeah, but helpful, like, did, was that someone that the COA told them, or they read it in Energize Whalen newsletter, like, what was the, what, what, what makes them categorize something as a partner lead source? Yeah, let me, um, I'll definitely. Let me ask, and I'll follow up with you guys. That's a good question. Oh. There was also something else, the pre-weatherization barrier. I'm not sure what that means.
I know what that, I know what that means. That means you're going to go out and do weatherization, but there was a moisture problem, or a mold problem, or a pest problem, or a knob and tube. These are the most common, what's called deferral issues. I can't do weatherization until those problems are solved. So that's what that means. And if you're- And who's all not reimbursed by MassSafe, right? It has to be taken care of fully. Has to be taken care of. Yeah. So, yeah, there are, there is, there is funding at MassSafe, mostly for lower moderate income households to do some of that deferral work, but not for market rate customers.
And the studio, thank you. I did, by the way, I said when we met with her, I would link her up with the HeatSmart Alliance people, which I did. I don't know what came out of it, but I made the connection and they were scheduling a meeting the last I heard.
Are there any other points or questions with homeworks or outreach with them?
Okay. So, my next point, I was just going to update you guys. We had applied for the EVIP funding. Mark Hebert had requested for me to apply for the new charging station for private use at the public safety building, which we received funding from them. So, that's exciting. And then he also wanted me to apply for a fully electric Chevy Silverado. And we just today received the EVIP funding for that as well. So, that's exciting. So, they'll be charging their, you know, private vehicles there, not open to the public, but just a good step for Whelan to have more electric vehicles in their town fleet. Just on my question, Olivia. So, we have something called an energy fund, which Niels knows well. And into that, we were putting incentives in rebates if they were not applied to the paying a bill, right? So, sometimes we do a big building project. We get the rebate. 18 months later, we've already paid all the vendors. Is this EVIP money getting spent right away, or would it be the kind of money that would go into this pot, the energy fund? I don't think it's going to be going into that pot because it's the police department that's going to be receiving the money, and the rest of the payment's going to be coming out of their budget. Okay. The EVIP grant has to hit your account before you can make any purchases. So, I think it's going to be used right away. Okay. Great. Thank you. And then, so, the next thing I was going to say was just about Green Communities funding. I talked about this last time. There's really no updates because we're just waiting until the end of July. Sorry to be a pain in the ass. So, this is a great news story. We, you should write an article, 300 words to the Whelan Post saying, we got grant funds to install electric vehicles. This is what it's being used for. Get a nice quote from the police chief. They would run it. Okay. Okay. You know the woman, June, I've introduced you via email to her. I'm happy to be on the thread. But say to the police chief, hey, we want to do this. Any objections? Otherwise, I'll write 300 words. I'm happy to help you with that. I mean, really, it's 300 to 400 words. It's very little text. What you really want is like a picture. So, we know we're getting this Chevy just from the Chevy website. You know, grab an image of what it looks like. Or better yet, a picture of the police chief. You know? Him standing. Yeah, no, I'm happy to do that. Next to the Silverado. Yeah. Yep, that would be the best. So, you could write it and then take the picture with him right when he's ready. But you guys should, that would be great. Okay, yeah, no, that's a great point. And I'll probably include something about it in our town newsletter as well. Yeah, yeah. Right, right. And also, Energize Wayland, we're probably silent for the summer now, but we can put it in September. So, whatever you write, we can re-amplify it. And honestly, I would, don't we post on Facebook? Do we have a Facebook account for the town? Yeah. The answer is yes, we have a Facebook account for the town. You should post it there too, Olivia. Like, people always say, we don't know what you're doing. So, those three, every time there's something like this, I would encourage you to have a checklist. The town newsletter, the Wayland Post, Facebook. So, it's really the same text, you know? So, it's no more work for you, but it's getting the word out. You want people to know that we're doing things, that you're doing things. Remember, your salary gets paid by voters, so we don't want people to, we want people to support the budget and your salary. So, you got to show them what you're doing. Mm-hmm. All right? All right. And then, moving on, the next thing I was going to talk about was just green communities funding, which I've shared with you guys before. We should hear back at the end of July, so there's really nothing new to say about that. Just as a reminder, we applied for upgrading lighting in the town building and in the library. We applied for an electric vehicle for our facilities department and then a second police department vehicle. So, in addition to the Chevy Silverado, and then I did speak to Dylan about this. Unofficially, he said he doesn't see any issues with us receiving funding, but obviously nothing's official until it's official. And the EVIC money, you have that spreadsheet. Abby started it. Julie kept it. It was a list of all funds brought in. You have that Excel sheet, right, Olivia? I do. Yep. Great. Make sure you add the EVIC money to that. Okay. Yep. I can definitely do that. And that maybe just shared, put on the agenda for next time. Let's share that sheet with the committee and particularly with Bill. I think we want to make sure the finance committee understands the kind of resources we've brought in. Okay.
Other than that, though, I don't have too much to share. I submitted our large building energy report, which wasn't too heavy of a lift. As a reminder, it's just any building in Massachusetts over 20,000 square feet. So I was doing Wayland's public building, so like schools, library, town hall, et cetera. But it didn't take too much time, so that's submitted. So we're in compliance with that, which is good. During the summer, I plan on starting our Mass Energy Insight MEI report, which is required by DOER for us to stay in compliance with green communities. So I'll be working on that probably starting at the end of June, start of July. And, yeah, that's pretty much it. The schools are going to be busy this summer with just projects, fixing things, and doing what we can while the students aren't there. You know, and half of my role is facilities. So just working to support the custodians, contractors, and vendors that are coming in to do repairs as needed. But, yeah, any other questions or comments? That's kind of all I had for today.
I thought it might be. Go ahead, Tom. I'll just mention, over the weekend, I happened to spend a couple of hours at an event in Carlisle where one of the booths at this event was the Carlisle Sustainability Committee and chatted a lot. On the subject of police vehicles, they're doing pretty much the same things as we are. That is, buying electrics for, you know, staff cars first, but looking at the future possibility of actual patrol cars being electric. So I'm wondering if Hebert is in contact with his counterparts in surrounding towns, if there's some, you know, overall work in this area, at least on the sharing information level being done. So you might mention that to Hebert the next time you chat with him. Okay, yeah, definitely. I mean, I will say as a good sign, it was coming from Mark, the push for the Chevy, and then for the other vehicle. So he's definitely, I think, leading the way from that side of things. But I will, you know, suggest to him if he has friends, you know, that are also police chiefs to reach out and kind of just brainstorm together. And what would be really nice if there were some joint purchasing effort for, you know, multiple towns. I think everyone's just buying off the state list, so that's how they're getting the best deals, Tom. Okay. Is that how we're doing it, Olivia? Buying it off the state? Yes, the state approved vendors. That's what he's going through. Yeah. The only other thing on my list, Abby and Olivia, was we should just update the committee along this clean energy siting thing, all those meetings you and I sat through with Rob and the state. Oh, okay. So you might remember, guys, that the state, based on the state law, has promulgated regulations to facilitate the permitting of large solar installations and batteries. Wayland drafted a bylaw. We thought it was premature. That effort is put on hold. And the state regulations for permitting large projects more than 25 megawatts, which is pretty big, and I would not anticipate hardly any in Wayland unless we did, like, a big landfill project.
The regs came out, and some of the guidelines have come out. Wayland does have to be ready to be in compliance. Seems very unlikely, John has said, seems very unlikely that we'd get a large such project. But if we did, we have to be ready to implement these regs no later than October 1st. The earliest you could do it is July 1st. We had a meeting with the state that Rob, the planner, organized, and Olivia and I attended, and Mike, and she said, like, no one's saying they want to do this before October 1st. So the gist of what it mainly means is you apply for one permit in the town. Instead of, like, you go to planning and you go to conservation and you go to blah, blah, you come in with one consolidated. You get one consolidated permit. So this is to facilitate it on the applicant side, right, so you don't have to go to a million different ones. And then you have to rule on, you have to make your decision on that in less than, no more than 12 months, because people have gotten delayed for years and years. So the state is now putting together a workbook. I said, you must have a checklist. You have the regs, but you must have a checklist. Like, what do you have to put in place to do this? And the state is now coming out with a workbook in the next couple of weeks that would lay out essentially those steps, and Rob is going to take the lead on this as the town planner. We do not need to have a bylaw to implement this. It's not required. I think there's still some interest on the part of at least one member of the planning board to have a bylaw that would give us the ability to control projects that are less than 25 megawatts, which would be all of the projects in Wayland primarily. Obviously, rooftop just goes on, so it's really about ground-mounted. So I think they seem mostly focused on getting in compliance. I did say if there was going to be some effort to write a bylaw, we would like to be involved. Jesse, who wrote it last time, seems amenable to collaboration. So that's kind of where that stands. I feel like it's a September thing. So that's kind of where we're at with them. So let me make sure I understand that. What the state did applies to over 25 megawatts. Yeah, our interest is in much smaller systems, but I know the planning board is paranoid about installation just popping up in weird places. But you're saying that we could apply the state regs for the big ones to any side? Is that what you're saying? No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying the state regs apply to the bigger ones. Someone could come to Wayland, and under the state regs, you could opt to say, I'm a smaller project, but I want to go through the consolidated permitting process because I know at least it would make Wayland make a decision within a year. So we have to have the process in place. All I'm saying is we have to, if someone came to us with a large project or a small project and wanted to use the consolidated permitting process, we have to have a system to be able to respond to them. But they would have a choice to ask? Yeah, they have a choice. They can choose to opt in as a less than 25 megawatt system to go through the consolidated permitting process. And it's quite detailed. It's really not designed for that. It's one permit. You've got to have a certain number of public hearings. It's prescriptive, Tom. And there's a bunch of guidelines. It's technically possible. It's unlikely in reality because smaller projects have smaller budgets. And it's unlikely that it would be economic for a developer to spend all the pain and suffering of going through a big project application process to get a small project done. But the way the regs are written, that's something that they have as an option. Unless, of course, the small permitting project process is worse than that. Right. Right now, we have no process. And that's where the planning board is mulling. Should we have a process for smaller transactions? In particular, should the town have the ability to regulate them in some fashion? Are there certain criteria that the town wants to see in place for those? And that's just the town is silent. We have nothing in place right now. So that's what makes it harder. But the planning board answer to what you asked is, yes, absolutely. We want to have a process. Yes. Yes. That is true. So can we just take the state process and there is no state process for small transactions? Tom is asking, Tom is asking, could we just take the state process for big process and make it our process for small? I don't think we'd want it to be that onerous. It's pretty onerous. Much more onerous because big projects have more impact. I don't think we'd want to do that. Right now, the only thing we have in place are the setbacks that are already in zoning and planning. You know, like you can't build your house right up against the line. The same is true for Gowen Montes. It's a structure. That's really all we have. Do we want to have more than that? So I think probably it's a conversation with the planning board. But right now, the town planner is pretty focused on being in compliance with this. And some of it's very easy. You have to pick who is the person who would be the point person for the consolidated permit. Brabis said, OK, it should be the town planner. We agree. We were not arguing that sustainability should be the point. You have to be someone, if you're going to negotiate community benefits, who would that person be? I mean, again, these are very unlikely, but you have to have some things set up. So I think we'll probably in August, September have to reach out to them to say, are you still thinking about a bylaw? We'd like to be involved and figure out who on our committee would want to work on that with them. But I'm certainly – John has been our solar expert in the past and has worked more with solar developers, so would be a likely candidate for at least a first draft or talking about it. So I think that's just something we need to reach. You know, Olivia, you need to be monitoring with Rob. When are they thinking about it? Because if they want to have a – as we all know, a town meeting warrant, they have to have a draft ready for the select board in like December, which means they have to have had hearings in October, November. You probably need to draft the thing in September. So it's sooner rather than later. All right. So that's the update. Anything else from folks as I am signing off?
Our next meeting, when is that? Because I think it's on – we don't change the schedule based on vacations or anything unless it's Olivia. So it's the second Tuesday of July, right? Is that when it would be? Right now it's scheduled for the 21st. The 21st. Really? I don't have that. That's the invite that Olivia sent out a while back. That's what I have, too, the 21st. Back when you were Olivia Blaney. I don't – that's so funny. It didn't come to me. Okay. This is at 4 o'clock on the 21st? Correct. All right. That's just – that's what we have. It doesn't mean we have to keep that. No, it doesn't. It works better for us, Ellen. Yeah. We are staying with the standard invite. We are not changing it unless Olivia can't make it around people's schedules. Whoever makes it, if we don't have a quorum, we're not meeting. The 21st, not – because I have the 14th online. Yeah. I had the 14th as the next one. Is that from Julie, the one you have? Because I have the third Thursday at 4 p.m. is what we're going with. Okay. All right. So let's go with the 21st at 4 p.m. Maybe you could resend out the invite. It sounds like some of us aren't getting it. Okay. I just resend it. So you should see it right now. Okay. So let's – my problem is we do July, and then we might end up taking August off.
We are going to have this event in September, so we might want to meet just on that, but it could just be people working on the event could meet. Maybe we could save the time slot for now and then cancel it if that proves not. But that way people can at least know that the 18th is a possibility at 4 p.m. Yeah. Olivia, can you send those out for every – like I would just send the notice out in perpetuity, make it a repeating event, and just send it out so it shows up for people for the next year. I believe it is, and then with Abby Warren in the town manager's office, we kind of indefinitely have this third Tuesday 4 p.m. slot, so I think we should be good. Right. But have you sent out a calendar indictment to all the committee members that's in perpetuity? Oh, so funny. Okay. I think I have trouble with my Wayland email on this. Olivia, for today I could see two invites in my Wayland email address. One had the Zoom details and not the other. It's just the comment I would make, and I'm not sure which one it was. The one that I had just forwarded to you guys, so it'll be at the top of your inbox right now, there's no Zoom invite because you have to go to the town website to go to the public meetings, and then you'll see the Zoom link. If you have something else on a different day that's not the third Tuesday at 4, it's probably from Julie, please disregard, because that's old. So is there a way to add directly either the Zoom link or where to get the Zoom link from the invite? I can definitely add the individual Zoom link as it's posted for that meeting. I can't do it in advance, but as the next one gets closer, I can make a note for myself and add it if that's easier for you guys.
Yeah, for me, that's easier. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. No, I can definitely do that.
Okay. I'll take a motion to adjourn. Oh, do you guys want to vote on last month's minutes? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Please, someone make a motion. So moved. Second.
All in favor, I'm going to raise hands. Let me see. It's Neil, Tom, Ellen, Clovis, you're voting. 4-0.
Motion to adjourn. Thank you. Any objections?
Okay, see you guys. Okay, bye guys. All right.