December 9, 2025 – Energy and Climate Committee – Video & Transcript
December 9, 2025 - Energy and Climate Committee
So I am calling to order tonight's meeting of the Energy and Climate Committee pursuant to after, this is Ellen Tohn Chair, pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted via remote participation.
No in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted.
This meeting may be recorded, which will be made available to the public on Wacom as soon as possible after the meeting.
And, Robbie, are you our Zoom manager?
Yeah, just for a few minutes, yeah. And then what happens? I'll be around the corner for ZBA. They're also here. I see. I see. So you're just saying they're more important than we are. You know, I don't know how to take that, Robbie. No. Well, thank you. I just want to thank you because we couldn't do it without you. So thanks very much. And obviously, you know, our protocol, people didn't get the panels and just keep promoting them. So I am expecting one more person. And before we, I would just want to, before I do the attendance, I do need someone to take notes. And part of notes is recording who's attending. So we're going to need to come up with a better schedule. We just rotate it. But I do need a volunteer for tonight. Whatever happened, this was a few months ago. And Abby said we wouldn't have to do minutes anymore, that the town was taking over that function. Right. Olivia, do you want to chime in on this?
Oh, I'm sorry. I don't think I heard about that. No. Yes. I don't think we're allowed to. Yeah. I think that Abby thought you were allowed to. And then, Bill, I think it got clarified that town staff are not allowed to do that. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Because Abby said other committees were doing it and we should do it, too. Yeah. I heard exactly the same from the board of assessors. But it's town employees doing it. So I'm surprised, basically. So maybe, Julie and Olivia, can you guys just double check? It seems like different boards are doing different things. Sure. Especially that there are two of you. It would help us. In the meantime. Yeah. I mean, my understanding is that staff aren't allowed to do it. It was definitely a policy in Weston. So this is different in Wayland. And I don't know. I feel like in general, things are harder here. So I would be surprised if there was. If you guys could just double check us, because it sounds like Clovis is saying one board, the staff does do it. Other boards, they don't. I don't actually know the rules. Yep. I can. Sorry. I'll report that. Yeah. The one other thing that could be the confusion is that some committees are using AI notes to generate a summary of the meeting, which is not the same thing as the meeting notes that need to get submitted and reviewed. And I would like to see if we can enable that, Julie, just so who's ever taking the notes if they, because sometimes you don't catch everything, like the exact wording of emotion. So I don't know, since I'm not the host, Olivia, you're the host right now. It looks like someone has to enable that. Um, so maybe we could practice, Olivia, you can see about enabling it for tonight, or let's do it for the next time. So back to my original point, before I do who's in attendance, I do need someone to take notes. And remember, you don't have to do everything. You have to record motions, significant points of the discussion, and who is attending.
Well, Tom did it at the last meeting.
Tom did the last meeting. So that means, uh, hey, Bill, can you? Usual lousy job. I mean, I need at least a couple of days notice. I'm sorry. I mean, I think I've been clear all along about that, but yeah, I'll do the next meeting. Okay. Bill can do next meeting. Who can do tonight?
Doesn't seem fair to make Steve on his first meeting do it. That seems mean. Okay. If, if we're going to have the AI notes, I'm happy to do it. Okay. Olivia, can you enable that? Um, I don't think she can enable it. It's an account setting. Okay. So here's what I'm going to say. And we don't have access to the account. So you're going to get very basic notes from me. That would be good. That's fine. I'm in favor of basic notes are fine. There's a, um, record button at the bottom of my screen. Yeah. It just gets you a transcript, which. It's not that helpful. Not, not, unfortunately it's not as helpful. So here's what I'm going to say, Neil, if you could do it tonight, Olivia and Julie, I'm sure we'll take decent notes and we can review it and spiff it up. Um, so Neil taking notes. So now that Neil's taking notes, I will note for the record in attendance committee members, Tom Siaka, Bill Huss, Neil Gordon, Ellen Tohn, and then Steve Garone and associate member Clovis Schaaf, right? Is that, if I got this right on who's the associate Clovis, you're the associate, right? And student representative. And obviously Neil, you'll be helped by the spelling by seeing everybody's little, um, uh, Kavya Swariker, who is, um, the younger sister of our first student rep, um, Tara, who we all adored, who's now at Harvey Mudd. So, um, I want to first give Steve, is this your first meeting with us? It is the first meeting I've been able to come to. Yes. Okay. So I would like, um, Kavya and Steve to introduce themselves briefly to everybody, um, before we get started. I think the rest of us all kind of know each other. Um, and one thing that was not on the agenda, I think it's on there for the last thing. I really, no one should leave early before we agree on the regular date and monthly time of this meeting. I'm tired of doing emails about this. So, um, maybe we'll actually do it before we get to the main thing in case people blip off early. Cause it's, it's annoying. All right. Steve, why don't you go first? Sure. Okay. My name is Steve Garone. I am a longtime resident of Wayland. I moved in, in 1980. Uh, so I've been here for a very long time. Um, and, uh, I am currently, uh, the chair. Chair of the Wayland Democratic Town Committee. I'm also involved in Energize Wayland. I kind of provide the, uh, interface between those two groups. Um, and, um, you know, very much into the notion of sustainability and renewable energy sources and, um, uh, been driving hybrid cars since 2006. Uh, I just got an electric car and, um, I'm sure other people are in this position. I'm also wrestling with the company that installed my solar panels. Long story. But, um, um, not a good, not a good face to put on at this point. But, um, anyway, decided that, you know, based on all the things that I'm interested in, in this regard, it might be a good idea to maybe, uh, apply my, uh, experience and my energies on this committee. So, I made that request and here I am. And I would say, Steve, correct me if I'm wrong. Steve has some background in marketing and communications. I do. I do. Yeah. So, that's a skill set we don't have on the committee that I thought would be useful to us. Correct. In fact, he and I worked together, I think in the seventies, I was the engineer and he was the marketing guy. That's right. Great. Digital Equipping Corporation. Remember them? Yes. All right. Uh, Kavya. And then Clovis, I don't know, have you introduced yourself to everybody in the committee at the last meeting? I wasn't there. Uh, two meetings before when I was, before I applied. Um, so Julie, I know we've met, we've energized Weyland, um, and Kavya, we've met at, um, the festival last Earth Day, maybe. I can't remember. Spring, I guess. Yeah.
Uh, so yeah, not as, uh, not as longstanding resident of Weyland as Steve. I've been only there for only 15 years, uh, with two kids in high school, former soccer coach, um, and I'm coaching homeowners for heat pumps, uh, and solar as well in Weyland and also neighboring communities. And he's been pretty active with the HeatSmart Alliance as well. Yeah. And Clovis has background more in the software computer sort of, uh, side of things. So helpful. And as we're looking at data stuff or manipulating things. All right, now to you, Kavya.
Hi, I'm Kavya. Uh, I'm part of, I'm part of Green Team in the high school. I'm the secretary. It's my second year. I'm really excited to be part of this as committee and look forward to it.
Kavya, one thing that I will follow up with you on is it seems like it works best when we have a student, if, if you take like an issue, that's actually a good fit for your skillset. And so as you're listening, please be thinking about, are some of these things that would be good to bring back to the Green Team or things that people in the high school might want to know or, um, and, and we can follow up after this to kind of think about that more. Julie doesn't know this and he says, predates both of you, but we had an initiative to lobby the school committee to ensure that every, um, person graduating from Wayland school districts graduated climate literate, which meant that they understood the causes, the consequences and actions you could take. And that, that meant not just in science curriculum, that meant, you know, across a bunch of things. And we were not successful in that. We had a couple of high school kids and a couple of members of the community work on that. So let's be thinking about, um, better connection between particularly the high school students and what we're doing here. And we can, we can think more about that, but I don't, I want to make sure you're engaged and not bored, you know, listening to a bunch of jargon and that we, that we build that bridge as effectively as we can. So open to your suggestions. All right. Is there any public comment? I don't think there's anybody else in the meetings. Okay. So why don't I hand it over? Um, oh, why don't I do this meeting thing first? Cause I really want to get this done. Um, so Julian and Olivia, are you, are you, um, we've, we've done two things. We've met in the evenings and then we've had four 30 meetings. I think Julie, you were saying four 30 meetings are not good for you. Okay. You're muted, Julie. Yeah. I, I have kids. We, I have to do pickups between four 30 and six. It's like the hardest time for me to meet. So I can do earlier or I can do later. Um, but between four 30 and six, it's the rush. So I like to propose that we go back to evenings. Then I think Mondays are terrible because there's a lot of other town meetings and that'll be conflict for, with bill for finance committee, which he has once a month. So Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, Thursdays are also, I think, busy zoom meetings for the town. So that leaves and Fridays are out. So that leaves us to Tuesday and Wednesdays. I, Steve, I believe you have a standing conflict on Tuesdays, correct? No, I have a standing conflict, the second Tuesday of the month. Okay. So, um, could we try for Wednesdays now is good for me. Could we try Tuesdays and John Harper can't attend, but he said Tuesdays, Wednesdays, fine. Could we try for Tuesdays, but not the second Tuesday of the month. Um, we could try for the, I don't even know what day it is, right? We could try for the third Tuesday of the month, because I think that'll put us in January. Like the first week back is, okay, this, the third Tuesday of the month is the 20th, right? The 20th, fine. So what that means is there will be months where some people can't make it, but you will get it on your calendars and we will just try to have a quorum. Um, so we will try for the third Tuesday of the month, um, I, you know, maybe Olivia could do this instead of me because I only use a Google calendar and I, I tend to, I create a Google calendar invite from my personal calendar because I don't have a calendar for my Wayland account, but maybe Olivia or Julie could help us with this and create the invite standing and invite all of us so I can get it off my personal thing. Um, yeah, I think that would be great. It also allows us to add the agenda once it's posted and do meeting reminders, um, and just provide that staff support. Great. That's what I did in Weston, so I'm happy to do that. That would be great. If you could do that, it'd be great. I will have to tonight delete, I'm making a note, delete my calendar invite. You guys are on it. Perfect. All right, we're done. Will they be, will they all be by Zoom? I think at this point, we're going to stay with Zoom. Um, if we're going to do an in-person one, we will decide ahead of time if we want to do that. But I think Julie and Olivia, that works well for you guys. That works great, especially because we have that long Monday. Yeah. All right. You work very long days on Mondays, so it's nice to me. Okay. So that would be the plan to stay. Can we do a combination? I mean, can you have in-person with Zoom option? I know that's, it's technologically feasible for the town. I think Julie would prefer to be on a Tuesday night, not in the office is what you're saying. Right. But she can do this by Zoom. A hundred percent. And we can also, I mean, we can also every other do an in-person option. Um, I think we had a lot of challenges with the technology in the last one. Um, so if we could just wait a couple of months for, um, the town IT staff to figure out remote meetings at the COA. Um, and once they get that down, then we'll be able to do it more. Um, obviously those that were there saw it was, um, non-ideal. Um, okay. That seems like a good suggestion. We could put that off. Steve? Yeah, I just, I don't want to throw a monkey wrench in the works here, but I, I just want to, um, state an unknown. I'm also on the surface water quality committee and we're wrestling with the same issue, you know, when we're going to have our meetings and we have had some meetings on the third Tuesday of every month or some months. Um, so, uh, you know, I, I, why don't you just say we used to resolve issues with my children and my husband and I about work calendars with the four-year-old world. I called it first. So you can just say we called it first. And John, I would say, oh, someone's got to be at home with the kids. I called it first. I called it first. So I, hopefully that won't be an issue, but, but leave it where it is. I don't want you to send them an email saying, I now have a commitment on the third Tuesday of the month. Good, good technique, but I'm going to do it. All right. Now, thank you for doing that. I hate the logistics of that, but I'm thrilled that we have a solution. Let's stay remote until Julie feels like we're ready technologically to do that. Um, I would say I'm likely to be remote for the next four months. So, um, but you guys are welcome to meet in person. Um, what was the issue? Sorry. Um, what was the issue last month? Because I remember two months back, except for batteries, it worked kind of okay. So I'm curious to see what happened last, last time. Um, here, when we're doing our committee meetings, IT needs to be involved in setting up, not something that Olivia or I can do ourselves. Um, and so the result is that the IT staff that are assigned to do remote meetings is able to do the meetings at COA because there are also meetings happening at town building. Um, and we just had this conversation today. There's a lot of committees that will be moving to COA to have hybrid meetings. Um, we're just, every committee is still trying to figure out like what the best practice is going to be. Um, and there's a lot of like sound quality issues in town building. And, um, I think if we just give it a couple of months for everyone to figure it out and get into more routines, then it'll be easier for us to do that without, um, having the challenges that we had last time, which is that they didn't start the meeting and we couldn't find them to start the meeting. And so it became a whole, you know, like, is this technically a public meeting? If the information changed and you get what I'm saying? Like there's a whole, it's just more complicated. It's not like a regular staff. It sounds like a staffing issue. Clovis, not a technology issue. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so if I understand you couldn't get a recording as an outcome of the last session. Sure. Um, we did, we did get a recording and it's posted. It was just a different zoom link. So there's like, I think five, I think this is Wayland zoom three or something. There's like five town zoom accounts. So I happened to have a login to like the wrong zoom account. So I logged in and like unofficially recorded, but like, because of public meeting law, we have to follow the exact link that's been posted. Um, but we ended up posting it and it like, cause we had quorum and we didn't have anyone question it like a public complaint. Um, the clerk just counted it as a public meeting, but yeah, going, going forward, we just need more support from way cam. Like Robbie comes and starts the meetings and he, he wasn't aware of our meetings. So we were kind of waiting on him and he had no idea we were waiting. So, but all good. In essence, it's, we can do exactly what we're doing tonight. And if, if me, Neil and Tom decide to be in the same room, you know, that's, that's, you know, you're all welcome here. Right. So, so, so, so, I mean, it is possible. That would be a fine solution. So that would be fine. Yeah. Yeah. I, I really like in person. I'd like to physically see people if we can, but, um. Okay. I'm going to move us on from this. Cause I think we all agree. We would like the option of hybrid and now I want to keep us moving. So over to you, everybody satisfied the resolution. Julie will let us know when we have the green light to go with this. And those people want to meet in person can do that. All right, Olivia, um, updates from you. Um, I'll keep it short and sweet. As I had mentioned, we were going to partner with a massive approved vendor, um, officially Michael McCall and the select board approved moving forward with homeworks, um, a massive approved vendor. They offer home energy assessments. They do heat pump financing and installs, um, and, you know, home weatherization. So we ended up choosing them cause they had worked with a lot of surrounding towns, um, and I vetted, um, we had three responses to our RFQ and all of the references that came back kind of pointed me in the direction of homeworks. Um, so we ended up officially moving forward with them. I just had my first meeting with them. Um, they offer free canvassing, flyers, tabling at different events. Um, one of the things I'm really hoping to achieve with working with them is getting more data on what people are doing in their homes. Um, for an example, I feel like we don't have enough data on how many people have heat pumps in their homes, how many people have, um, solar on their roofs. I mean, we could drive around and count, but it'd be nice to be able to have a survey. Um, so working with them to have a Google sheet that, um, they'll have people fill out. That was something this meeting I think is going to be full, um, for our decarbonization roadmap, but maybe in future meetings, we could work on coming up with a survey together that we might want to ask, um, residents about what they're doing in their home to be more carbon neutral. Um, and, and then another idea I had with them was tabling at the COA. Um, I don't know how many of you have been over to the COA at like 11 AM, but it's packed. So I feel like it's a really good opportunity to reach the public. Um, Tom, did you have a question? Uh, well, uh, a suggestion, maybe the best way to find out who's got a heat pump is through, through every source now with the heat pump. Tom, we have this data, Tom, we have the data for mass save and we can go to the climate record. But that's not comprehensive, Ellen. That's the problem. Right. But I think surveying is too scattershot. We really won't get it. I mean, what. Not arguing with that. What I'm saying is any, I, I presume anybody with half a brain who has a heat pump is signed up for the heat pump rate because it's a significant amount of money. And, um, if, if we can find out through, through, through every source who, who has, that's probably a better count than the mass save count. Um, I would venture to say, I'm not sure. I agree. I'm not sure people, I agree. Everybody with half a brain should have signed up for the heat pump rate. And I still think people haven't done it. Um, and I've just had talked to somebody who was very, very knowledgeable and had not yet done it. Um, cause their heat pump, like mine predated, um, the mass save rebate. So we have, one of the things I think we have to do is do continue to pound that drum of getting people on the heat pump rate. That said, I think looking at the climate tracker data, Julie, you have that I've sent you the link and Olivia, I've sent you the link. That was the mass save data when it was up before they pulled it down. That's 422, I think heat pumps. And then we've looked previously, like when we installed ours, I'm sure you guys, I, um, building inspector came. So it's somewhere in the munis data set. So I just think Olivia, that it will be much more accurate and comprehensive than scattershot observing. If you want to get other information out of serving and engaging people, dandy. But if we really want the best count, we should do what Tom's saying. The Eversource, the mass save data and assessor or building inspector data, though, that really will give us a much better number. I think Neil. Um, it, you know, Olivia would be really helpful if we had like a brief bulleted scope of work because, you know, you just rather quickly outlined all the things that you said they were going to do. Most of which went right quickly over my head. And my second question is like, so what's the period of service on this contract? When, when do they start? When's it done? It's a non-binding contract, but we can be with them for up to three years. Um, we can also technically partner with another vendor if we wanted to, I can send you guys, um, the MOU that they replied to the RFQ with. And then that has everything that they've, you know, promised us and whatnot. Sounds great. I would just say, and I've said this to Olivia, but Julie, we're here then we we've partnered twice before we partnered with, um, next step living, uh, and we did one and we lasted this a few years ago with Nico, where we got 287 people to sign up for energy audit. So this is a somewhat saturated market. We don't have that many new people moving in and out and we have very good PowerPoint deck on what was the most effective outreach strategies from that. I've sent it to Olivia if you, and cause we, and, and we did have bi-weekly calls with them and their outreach team. Um, and I will say going house to house is not effective in many communities. It was very effective in Wayland. The single other most effective thing was the census mail or back page. That's where we saw the biggest, um, increase. Now we've used that. I've already given Trudy other content for that because we weren't ready to do this then. Um, so I also hope that we can use this, Olivia has used noted, to have them pay for a mailing, which we have no money to do to targeted groups of households with slightly different messages. People with oil, you know, Paul Dale's run that. I think it's either 1600, 1800 households that have oil. There's a special message for them. And there might be a different message, um, for people like we're in a condo who, that was built and their heating systems are now 18 years old. Like that's it. So I think some market segmentation would be interesting in the mailing as opposed to something generic. And it'd be interesting. Maybe they could even join an energy committee meeting and kind of talk that, talk that through a little bit and be curious if they've done that kind of segmentation in other communities. Um, I'll definitely bring that like up to them. And, um, like I said, when, once we've gotten through the decarbonization roadmap and the EV first policy, and there's a little more time, we can definitely talk through ideas people have, and I'll send you the MOU just so you guys have more context. Sorry about that. Um, and then we can come up with some type of survey that people would be interested in. Um, I definitely don't want to repeat what we already have, like what we already know, but kind of utilizing their, if they are going to be talking to people, getting some type of information, but we can, um, work on that together in maybe next month or something. Yeah. Just before you forget it, just for the notes, Olivia, to Tom's point, if they're talking to someone and somebody says they have a heat pump, really great to say, do you know, are you on the heat pump rate? Like that would be great. Cause now you're actually delivering value that they can actually absorb next week. I got my, my, uh, my first bill, by the way, um, after signing up and Eversource did it right somewhat to my amazement. Well, I just applied cause I'm pre not yet. I had to just upload stuff. I would just, uh, sorry, it's a non sequitur, but we have the ability to put articles in the Weyland post about different things. I've written a few I've asked Julie to do on introducing herself, but I would love to do one on this heat pump rate. They'll only publish their article. If it has like a Weyland slant and Tom, what you just said to me was the Weyland slant. So I was wondering if we get like two or three people that are on the heat pump rate to talk about how it changed their bills, that would give it a Weyland slant. What do you guys think about that? Yeah. Good idea. Okay.
Okay. I just want to say that, um, I'm really glad we're dealing with this question personally, because I am literally yesterday and today and tomorrow in the middle of installing two heat pumps in my house. And I had a question in my mind, which is how do I sign up for the heat pump rate? And you're answering the question for me. Yeah. You will be automatic. Because it's your, it's just people like me who went before the mass save was tracking these rebates. Okay. You'll be automatic. I never went through, through a mass. And Tom never got a rebate. I got a rebate, but it was before the data system was. Yeah. And I have to get the rebates done too. But I also want to say that I've had my daughter and son-in-law and my granddaughter living in my house for three days because their heating system went and I pitched them on heat pumps and they are centrally heating their house now with a heat pump. Still in installation, but we'll get in there. By the way, the link that Olivia sent out a couple months ago was what did it for me. I mean, that got me right into Eversources and I just put in my, you know, billing information and it was done. So, Olivia, whoever you can send that link to would be great because it worked perfectly. I mean, I can forward it to the group again. So you have that. Yeah, but it's a broader thing. Like I, I'm running the next Energize Wayland newsletter and this is going to be my lead thing, but Olivia and Julie, you know, you guys have the town newsletter and this would be, you know, reminding people over and over again, it's cold. You might be worried about your bills. If you have a heat pump, you can reduce your bill by 24%. Go to this page, look at your bill to make sure you're on the, whatever it is, HP1. And if not go here, it's very easy what you have to upload. So the next due date for an article for the Wayland Post is this coming Friday. And then next one will be two weeks. This will be January. We're just not going to get to it. Barb Hefner and I are coordinating the schedule thing. I'm trying to line Julie up for January. And I think we could do this for January, but I need like three people who can show reductions in their bills. Sure. So, Tom, you're number one. I am absolutely one. Yeah. So we need to find two more. Yeah. Mine went up. So I probably not a good choice. I mean, the rate didn't go up, but my usage went up because I added a heat pump. But if you've got the rate, you can calculate what you're saying. Yeah. But I think we need like real numbers, not the extrapolation from the story. Because I also have community solar. And so I'm getting rebates from that. So it's good. Okay. So I have last month. Okay. Tom, Tom, I want to find two more people. So maybe let's just try and come up with a couple of people.
But other people that have been, I'll ask Ann and, you know, Tom, Steve, Paul Dale, people they've coached, that might be a good. Yeah. I know one, I know one couple, the Rubinfelds, who had heat pumps installed many years ago. And I know he has mentioned to me that he wants that rate. Maybe he's done it already. I'll ask him. Okay. All right. I'll, I'll, I'll reach out to Ann on this. Bill, you're usually our writer of articles. So if I kind of get you three people through email, it's just we're entering the holidays. I'm a little, I get you some people and we give them a couple of questions. You can maybe compose something. Yep. I can do that. Yep. I can interview them or, you know, whatever. My email, great. Whatever you get me, contact people, any background. But yes, I can take it. Okay. So Tom's one and I'll get you two. I think three would be fine, Bill. I may. I may know one more too. Okay. So. Bill, if you need any help. As a note taker, I would point out we're now 15 minutes behind schedule. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. We're done with this. So Neil, what's really helpful for me on these notes is if there's like something in the end, like action items, like Ellen, work with Bill on the article. That's helpful to me. Yeah. I put that we're trying to get an article. Okay. Great.
Um, that, that was kind of it. I've also, I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with Tony and Margie Lee. Um, they offer a climate, like, I think they call it, let's talk about climate change. It's a set of classes they're offering at the COA. Um, it's once a month, it's a nice group of people and, um, they kind of come with a topic. Julie and I went and talked about just what we're doing. Kind of, we kind of just talked about what we're doing at the town level. Um, like our green communities application, our annual report, I should say stuff like that. Um, but I've been attending those meetings. So all of those people are actually going to email the select board in support of the EV first policy and the decarbonization roadmap. Um, so it's a really nice group of people. If anyone's interested, I can forward you, um, their schedule. Um, they're reading a book called Here Comes the Sun and it references some climate action in Framingham, which is kind of cool. Um, but just like a nice group. Um, and I'm also doing a rec, like collab. Um, we're doing an event. I'm calling t-shirt to totes in January. So kids can bring in like an old shirt and then we'll turn it into a tote bag. Let's talk about, you know, reusing fashion, no fast fashion, that kind of thing. But sorry, but yeah, that's, that's pretty much all from me right now. Thank you. I'm just wanting Olivia to attend that for, for, for months and always wind up with a conflict. Maybe the next month I'll get to it. I'll, I'll send you guys the, their time. I think it's January 15th is the next meeting, but I'll send that to you. Okay. So Olivia, I'm just hoping just, um, caveat, this would be a good one for you to, and Olivia to coordinate on that activity she's doing around the totes, right? Yep. I can, I'll reach out to Kavia. That would be a fun thing for you to be a part of if you're available. I'll email you later. And I think as we think about outreach for home energy audits, let's think about how to use a high school and Kavia for also spreading the word. Uh, let's just think about that channel. Okay. All right. Um, Julie, let's say on the agenda, I already said to Julie, the times are too aggressive. I, I, the topics were all good, but we are not, we're going to be done at nine, not at eight 30 guys. So, um, cause I know the next one is a bunch of discussions over to you, Julie. Um, so we're going to talk about the decarbonization roadmap and the, uh, EV policy. I wanted to start with the EV policy because I feel like this topic has been discussed and discussed and discussed, uh, Tom and I had a chance to sit down and really comb through the EV policy and came up with some good edits and changes. And then after that, I met with Ellen and Bill Whitney to comb through it again and provide a couple of more edits. So this has been reviewed, edited, perfected. I think it's the best possible, um, policy we can put forth right now. Does anyone have any questions or want to discuss it at all? Did, did we wind up getting it? No, the vote, I actually, Julie, can you just frame this on like where we are and what the select, when the timing of everything is? Cause that I think will help people understand where we're at. Sure. Climate leaders application is due December 31st. In order to be able to apply for it in this round, um, we need the EV first policy passed and we need the building decarbonization roadmap passed, um, both by select board, both have not been passed yet by select board. Both, um, the EV policy has been put forth to select where this will be the third, fourth meeting that it has been put forth to select board on, um, we're really fingers crossed hoping for the vote on this one, um, the decarbonization roadmap, this is the first chance we've had to have it reviewed by the select board. So it's a little bit more, um, of an ask by them. Um, we're doing work behind the scenes to get the policy or to get this, um, as close as it can be and as passable as it can be, um, and as simple as a, a yes, as it can be so that we can get that, um, application in by the end of the year. If we can't, it's not the end of the world. Um, it's just that we have some projects that could really benefit from the money and the funding cycle is such that if we don't get it in by the end of the year, then we're waiting until February, 2027 to apply for that million dollar grant. And that's just a really long, long, long lead time. Um, and there's a lot of work that needs to get done on a lot of buildings in town. So, um, the sooner we get access to that funding, the less it will cost the town to do these projects and the more we'll be able to like, you know, push forward with our goals. So that's the overarching. And the meeting for the select board is Monday night. Yeah. The meeting is Monday night.
Okay. Um, so does anyone have any questions on the EV policy? Well, I want to know what happened after you and I worked on it. What, what was it? Just a couple of minor changes. Um, you and I had talked about removing a section and Bill Whitney agreed with that. Um, a couple of minor, uh, clarification. I think it was like clarification. There were clarifications about, I think we were all clear about the exemption for heavy duty vehicles, but the way it was written was very cumbersome and confusing. And Bill said, this is cumbersome and confusing. Let's, it wasn't substantive, Tom. It was really helping the reader understand the intent. Yeah. I think that's how I would characterize it. Julie, do you agree? A hundred percent. Agree. Yeah. I would say. Um, I had, it was actually very nice to have Ellen and Bill, um, comb through it at that level, because I feel like that's what select board here really wants is a, a level of detail, um, to the wording, um, because of their backgrounds in law. So, um, all good things. I think it's in a really good place. So I would say the, um, and I sent this to you and I have been in touch with some of the select board members. And I think just being really clear that this is really no added cost to the town, Julie, we've talked about how to frame that, but you just really have to, I know. Um, so I think it's in great shape, um, Olivia, great that getting other people to weigh in. I think the important message is passing these makes us eligible to be a climate leader, which makes us eligible for a million bucks. And these are the right policies and they're consistent with our time clowns climate plan, and they should not cost us more money. The, the, the, is your, the ZEV policy. I liked EV first. It was easier to say, Julie, but the ZEV policy. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, and it's probably. Zero energy vehicle. It's called the ZEV policy, Tom. Okay. By the way, it's probably too late and, and, you know, isn't all that helpful at this point, but, you know, in the future, feel free to pass this through the finance committee. I mean, we haven't seen or talked about this at all. So to the extent that we can sort of say, yes, it's not going to have any financial impact. I think that we're going to sell it. Uh, and again, we're not going to have a meeting until January, so we're not going to be able to help you out, but in the future, you know, please, you know, encourage everyone to take it to the finance committee. And Bill, you're on the finance committee? Yes, I am. Great. Yeah, I mean, if, in an ideal world, if I had had a little bit more time, I mean, we, I came in and we've been sprinting to this since I started. But my, my typical process is to involve a number, have this reviewed by different committees over a period of a couple of months, getting their stamp of approval as we march forward. So that by the time it gets to select board, it's already been reviewed and approved by the people that they really want to hear from. And FinCom is always on that list. So absolutely. I mean, if it doesn't get passed, then you will see it in January. All right. Okay. T-carb, Robinaff, Julie? Sure. Has anyone had a chance to look it over at all? Yeah, I agree. Great. I don't look it yet. I'll give you the, I'm going to give you the 20,000 foot view of this plan, and then we can talk about discussions, questions, and then I'll point your eyes to the part that really like could use feedback, I think. The 20,000 foot view of this is, it's a non-binding, it's essentially your facilities department doing homework that it has never done before, because facilities departments don't do stuff like this. We don't make a 25 year decarbonization plan. It's non-binding. It's really just looking at, you know, a building, a typical municipal building has a 70 to 90 year lifespan. So you have that long before you really need to make either a major renovation or a replacement of that building. You have roofs that can be anywhere from 25 to 35 years before they need to be replaced. You have gas heating systems that which have a 25 to 35 year lifespan. So we take all that information. We look at when those systems were previously updated and when they are about when they are due to be updated again. And we take that information. We say, okay, rather than replacing in-kind, what if we were to electrify those systems? Obviously, there's a lot of engineering that goes into it. You can't just buy a new toaster and, you know, plug it into the wall. It's not a whole building energy system design, right? So we have to do engineering. We have to bring in a consultant. We would have to do that with new equipment anyway, because we're not going to replace in-kind the same boiler that we bought 30 years ago, the technology we have to. So this plan is essentially saying, these are our opportunities to update our equipment. How can we leverage existing funding mechanisms like utility incentives and grants and use that funding along with our existing building capital plans and electrify our buildings? And then just getting a timeline of when that's going to take place helps us to begin to prepare, okay, we know that we've got 10 years before we're going to need to do a major renovation on, say, you know, like all three elementary schools are reaching end-of-lifetime. So it doesn't really make sense for us to invest in electrifying those buildings because we have a bigger conversation that needs to occur. And the same is true for town buildings. Which has a roof that is reaching failure in a couple of different sections. So, you know, do we want to invest in a really nice roof or do we want to patchwork repair this so that we can limp along for the next 10 years and then either a larger renovation or replacement of that building? And then you have other things like the high school or, you know, the police station, which are in great condition and are not due to be replaced or repaired at any time soon. So we look at, you know, doing electrification for those buildings. So that's what this plan is. It gets updated every three years. If we get approved as a climate leader, we will be doing this exercise every three years. We'll be looking at what we've done so far. We'll be seeing the impact that it's had on our energy usage. And then we'll be forecasting out for the next three years, but 2050, because that's when the state's decarbonization goals come to fruition. So in this report, the most important section, I think, or the thing that I – one of the main reasons why I wanted to author this rather than submitting what Power Options did, which was fine, but I think could be really confusing. Somebody who's not deeply familiar with electrification and what it takes is Appendix C, which looks at 11 buildings in our portfolio, and it says, all right, in 2027, we're going to do this. In 2035, we're going to do this. In 2045, we're going to do this. And it goes building by building, and it shows you how each of those – each of those updates or upgrades, how they would impact our carbon emissions for building. And we can have a discussion because of the way I wrote it as to whether or not you think that data is accurate and whether those estimates are accurate or not. But DOER is going to do that anyway. So the bigger discussion can then be, you know, based on this information. If we know we have to do all these systems – all these systems replacements, you know, in the next 10 years, how do we want to proceed with updating this building, right? So we can have conversations like that because of the plan that we have. So I think that gives you enough background and context. Does anyone – or want to discuss any sections of the plan? Yeah, I just had one comment, which, you know, if you indulge the editor in me, I started by reading the executive summary. And executive summaries are named that because executives don't have enough time to read the whole report. So essentially, one of the key points in this report. As I read it, it's like this is all retrospective and there's very little, if anything, about the future. And then I dug into the depth of the report, and we do talk about the future, and we do have a roadmap. But the executive summary – we should assume that, you know, a lot of people aren't going to read anything more than the executive summary. So I would include a lot more of the future in the executive summary than is currently there. Again, it's not content. It's really presentation. And if you're like me, you just read the executive summary, and that's the report.
Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. I'll take that into account. I had three comments. Number one, I like the writing. I mean, I wouldn't argue with Bill's point, but overall, I thought it was a good writing job. One – well, one overall issue I have, I guess, but specifically about heat pump, water heaters. I am very interested in the issue of cost effectiveness, and I'm not convinced that heat pump, water heaters are certainly universally cost effective. And right now, I'm skeptical that they're very often cost effective. But in any case, I would assume that if they're cost effective at all, it's in a place where there's a large hot water usage and not in places where there isn't a large hot water usage. So, for example, when I look at the high school where kids are playing sports and then they shower afterwards, well, probably there's a large water usage there. And a heat pump hot water heater with a lot of storage to handle those peak times, you know, right after this sports event is over, might be appropriate. In the town building, though, I think it's just hand washing in the bathrooms there, isn't it? And a little spot heater, you know, those local under-sink two-gallon, you know, electric-resistant spot heater things might be just fine in that environment. And I don't know where you would install a heat pump water heater to feed the bathrooms. So, I would put in something about evaluating the particular usage pattern of, you know, in the various places. I don't know if you need them in the elementary schools at all. Are there showers in the elementary schools? I don't think so. Okay, so that was – and a general comment about cost-effectiveness. Yeah, I saw the message over and over. I hear the message that our elementary schools need replacement. On the other hand, you know, put up a few layers of isocyanurate on the insides of those walls. Cover them with plywood, replace the windows with R5 triple-pane windows. And, boy, you can do wonders for the energy efficiency of an old building without knocking down the building and starting from scratch. So, I, you know, I wish somebody would look at options less than complete replacement as a possibility. Oh, sure. Yeah, Tom, if I can just make a comment on that. All of this is just very generalized. Something will need to be done. So, even replacing all of your windows and gutting the building would be a major renovation or replacement, which is how it's written. And all of this stuff will be in committee for many years and discussed over and over again to the point where everyone finally gives up and makes a decision and then moves forward with that. So, you know, like, one of the great things about this is that we're saying, this is your time frame. Committee makes a decision you want to make, right? Like, move forward as you desire. But, you know, the guts of this building are, have a limited time frame. So, you have a limited amount of time by which to make this decision, right? It's not in perpetuity for as long as you'd like. We will have to do major updates and investments. Okay. And last comment, kind of specific. You talk about using a ground source heat pump at the high school, potentially. You're talking. Are you muted?
Sorry. Yeah. My kid came in. Oh, okay. And the high school is entirely in the recharge area for the happy hollow wells.
I'm not sure you can sink wells or anything for a ground source heat pump without affecting the happy hollow wells, which will remain under the current plans our major water source. So, I'm, again, a little, I mean, I love the idea of ground source heat pumps. Why don't you propose that for the town building, which has, I think, a lot of land around it and no conflicts like that that I'm aware of. But the high school, again, I mean, the high school is built in the wrong place. The wells were built in 1950. We built the high school in 1960 right on top of them, and we shouldn't have. But they're all there now, and you need to be careful about that interaction. I just want to say one thing about the plan for this, which is the thing we're trying to do right now, and Tom, I really appreciate these are all terrific points. The thing we're trying to do right now is check this box, because DOER says you can't be a climate leader unless you've done some thinking about decarbonization, right? So, this is some thinking about it. This is something we can change and modify, so I think this is good input for Julie, but she may not be able to get all that stuff in there in the next couple days. This is saying, this is kind of first plus, this is a living, breathing document. We're working on it, but DOER needs a piece of paper saying you've done some thinking, you've looked at your data. And for ground source heat pumps, I encourage Julie to use the verb explore, because that's actually what we're talking about doing here. So, let's, I don't think this will be our only bite at the apple in terms of giving input to Julie and the facilities team about what would happen with different buildings. So, I just want to set expectations, because Julie's got to finalize this probably tomorrow to get it in the packet for Thursday. So, let's, I think, if you give comments, if there are things, like Bill, I thought great comment at the executive summary, because the select board will actually read that. Tom, these are all great points, and Julie may not be able to address them all before tomorrow. Okay. I had a very similar reaction, which was, you know, fundamentally, this is a big policy document, and all the very specifics, you know, you run the risk of the conversation we just had, which is, you know, people talking about, you know, renovations to the high school that aren't going to happen for 25 years or whatever the heck it is, thinking that this document is, thinking that this document is the specifics of that's already decided. And I think somewhere in the document, you said something like, I don't know, paraphrase, this isn't real. But I think you've got to really emphasize, you know, this is more about the sequence and the criteria that you would use to evaluate projects, and the fundamental assumptions that we're going to, when we have the opportunity to replace systems, become more energy efficient, switch to renewable energy sources. I mean, what are the big policy points that this document outlines rather than, you know, I mean, all the things Tom said are true, and they could all be different in five years because the technology will have changed. So, you know, you know, hot water, you know, heat pumps might be remarkably great in 10 years, who knows, but that isn't the point, you know, your point is, you know, efficiency, cost effective, renewables. My only other question, and this is just because I'm kind of, kind of slow, does moving to electrification assume that the grid has become renewable? I mean, that, to me, to me, you maybe should make that point a little stronger, because it took me two readings to kind of find that and sort of get myself comfortable with, oh, going from gas to electricity. Electricity actually makes sense, because the electricity will be fine, which, you know, it isn't today. You know, it says that Whelan already produces 25% of its own electricity via solar. You know, we don't seem to, I don't, do we have a parallel plan that gets us to us producing 100% of our electricity? You know, that might be a cool plan. Yeah. We're not actually producing it. We're using net median credits, but we won't get into that level of D. I think, Julie, this is overall, like, a super good point, because people will, like, nitpick in this. So there's got to be something in the executive summary that says what Neil is saying, that as we look at this, we're always going to do these things. We're going to assess buildings. We're going to look for efficiency first. We're going to look for strategic electrification. You know, we're going to try and get ahead of things before they break, whatever that is. And then just say that the projects identified, particularly those that are further out, are our best guess. But this is a living, breathing document that will be updated as technology changing. I don't know if you can say that often enough. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I did a lot of, I will say this, just to the points about, like, specific decisions that are going to be made on electrification. It's intentionally nonspecific. I'm not saying we should do geothermal anywhere. I'm not saying that we need to adopt a certain technology at any location, because I don't know. And I wouldn't put us in a position where we are at all making it appear as though we have that decision made. We don't. Everything's going to have to go through committee. Everything's going to have to go through a process. And really, like, as we're entering this beginning phase, which we're not, because we've been doing this work already. You know, like, this is work that has been in process for the last, you know, what, almost five years since the camp plan was adopted. We're just now putting it on paper. It's actually since we did the ESCO, actually, Julie, when we did the ESCO, that's when it really started. Yeah, I mean, so this is, exactly. So this has been a process where, you know, we have already been looking at our heating set points. We have already done energy audits. We have already done some air sealing and insulation. Yes, we have more that we can do. But we're, we have a, more of a, I agree with you, more of a sequence, a process by which we are articulating how we're focusing on energy. Efficiency, saving the town money on the front end before we're making electrification decisions and investing in equipment that would electrify our building. Julie, do you feel like, yeah, I mean, do you feel like what you've gotten for us must is helpful? Because we can keep talking, but I'm conscious of the time. And I think people have made their points. I know you're under the gun, so to speak, to, to turn a doc. So Bill is a terrific reader of like executive summaries. And, you know, if you wanted to get a, get, or, or, or Neil, Neil used to run the, you know, Acton Children's Museum. So he sort of operates his left. So, you know, if you, if you guys are checking your email tomorrow and Julie just wants to send around the executive summary to people that you could, we can't discuss, but you can just give Julie feedback directly. Yep. Yeah. I'd be happy to do that. And I mean, basically, and to some extent, it's a summary of what we just said, you know, Julie's introduction, Neil's point, you know, that's the executive summary. And I would defer all of my editorial to Bill. Great. All right. So Julie, you can send it to Bill and I, and we'll just go with that. And Tom, all good points. But I think for the select board, boy, I don't want to be in that discussion with them about specific technology. Well, then she does talk about grounds. I know. I know. So if you want to avoid the rat hole, not talk about that. I'm going to, I'll double check that, Tom. I'm pretty sure that I did not put that in because I would not commit to doing that at the high school. I also wouldn't commit to it at town building. Yeah. Why don't you look at it, Julie? Somehow Tom got that impression. So Julie, for the board, Julie's putting, you've already shared it with Michael, right? So they'll be in the packet, the ZEV policy, the decarbonization roadmap, a slide, kind of introducing them, and a little summary of why we did the decarbonization roadmap. Is that basically it? Yes. Okay. So. Yes. We talked about, Ellen, we talked about a letter. And basically, I'm going to go through the executive summary. I will use Neil's points and Bill's points, and I will work with both of you to make sure that that says what it needs to say so that if they read nothing else, they understand the intent of the document. And then I will take that information, and I will put it into a letter, which will be the header of this document, which is probably all they will read.
And I think some of the other feedback we, yeah. I'm curious what you guys think. Some of the other feedback we got was something like, what is this document, and what is it not, right? What's it trying to do, and what does it obligate the town to do? The answer, what does it obligate, is nothing. You know, what is it, you know, it's a cut at a plan, but it is not binding obligations to do specific technologies at specific schools at specific times. And what it's doing is laying out best practices for managing our facilities well with a goal towards decarbonization in a cost-effective manner. Like, that's the message thing, and what it's also doing is giving us the document we need to be able to qualify as a climate leader and be eligible for substantial grant funds. I feel like that's part of the letter, Julie. You know, that's a little more process-y, but that's, I think, it's like, why am I reading this thing? What is this thing? All right, Julie, you got your hands full on that? It is genuinely just to meet the climate leaders. We wouldn't be doing it otherwise. So, I don't think, I didn't put a vote on the agenda, so I don't think we can take it. But certainly, Julie, you can represent to the select board that the Energy Committee is fully on board with these documents. They've been discussed. We've given you our input. We're supportive. I just don't think we can vote. But I would say, I'm just going to get a sense of the committee. If people are supportive of these two things, would you just raise your hand? All right. So, the sense of the committee was that we are very supportive, Julie. We didn't take an official vote. But you can certainly represent that. Ellen, it was in the agenda, I think, the last bullet, it was upcoming select board presentation and vote. Their vote, not our vote.
Okay, I'm confused. I think we have to say that the committee would take a vote. I read that as, maybe I'm wrong, but I read that as upcoming select board presentation and select board vote. That was the intent of that bullet, right, Julie? You can do a vote, whether it's in the agenda or not. I mean, all somebody has to do is make a motion in a second. All right. Well, let's take a motion. I will entertain a motion about our support for these two documents. Somebody, I can't make it as the chair. Okay. I move that the Energy and Climate Committee supports the climate roadmap and the EV policy. Support the decarbonization roadmap and the ZEV policy. Thank you. Thank you. I need a second. Second. Any further discussion on this? I'll just do a roll call vote. Steve? Yes. That was a yes, right, Steve? Okay. Bill? Yes. Yes. Neil? I was muted. Yes. And associate member, you're not in voting, but I'll still get your vote, Clovis. And Tavia, maybe you don't know enough about it, but thumbs up. Okay. So the voting members, it is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 0. And Neil can record that. And you can certainly represent Julie this to the, they won't be surprised. I've spoken to most of them about it. Thank you. Great. All right.
At an Energize Wayland meeting, we discussed this. And I think I did see a letter that came from Ann Harris, our former co-chair, urging them to vote this way. You know, Michael Delman. So I think there will be members of the public who provide public comment on this. If you want to do that as an individual, not as a member of the committee, you can come to the select board meeting and be very brief, please. I think the key points are, we, these are good best practices. This makes us eligible for substantial grant funds, and this should not cost the town. This is a good strategic financial decision for the town. You know, zero energy vehicles will be done within our current budget. We're not required to buy vehicles that won't do the job or cost a lot more. And decarbonization roadmap planning is just good facilities planning. So if you know members of the select board and you want to reach out to your friends on the select board, feel free. Eligible for a substantial grant funding is kind of important. Is the lead, I think. They will focus on that. Actually, we've said that over and over, Bill. And interestingly, they focus more on, will these policies cost us more in the short run? Right. But it's the economics. In other words, money in rather than money out. Yep. Yep. Okay. Energize Whalen update, which I will do, but I would love, you know, Clovis can chime in here as well.
The, this is, we should put this on the agenda also, Julie and Olivia. This is not Energize Whalen. It's really the plug-in update. So remember, we're part of a six-town outreach campaign called Plugin Metro West. Did we lose? Oh, there we were, Julie. Dot org. And Mass Energize supports that, running monthly webinars on different technologies. The last one was on heat pump water, Peter. Some individuals from Whalen attended. And Energize Whalen will be following up with those individuals. In January, they've asked us to promote some resiliency checklists. So, Olivia, I don't know. It seems like maybe we could use the town newsletter to promote in January what Fabiani sent out about resiliency being prepared for the winter. You were on that email distribution, as was I, and Anne and Clovis, I think. So, hopefully, so have a, we should, I will, maybe, Olivia, you could send a note to Fabiani and make sure Julie's on these distributions, too. But that would be a good one for the town newsletter. Yeah. You with me? Yep. Okay. And I will make sure, in January, there's a webinar planned, and I really, because I've been out of town for two months, I don't remember what the topic is. Do you remember what it is, Olivia? What Fabiani's hosting? I believe, is that what you're talking about? I'm sorry. Yes. The January plug-in webinar being hosted by Mass Energize slash Fabiani. Do you remember the topic? I think it's solar. Home solar. I thought it was about, like, energy home assessments, actually, but I'm not sure. Okay. We're not sure, but there'll be another one in January, and then Olivia should use the town newsletter to do that Energize Whalen will promote it in the way we always do. So the other thing that came up in Energize Whalen and Clovis and Steve were on these calls, actually, it was a suggestion by Steve's wife, Lynn, to offer home composting bins, identify a vendor that has a pretty good price. We're going to either commit to ordering some in advance or just give people the link to do them individually, and we can centralize the delivery and distribution, which I think is what people are leaning towards a little bit more. But it'd be a chance for us over the winter. And Energize Whalen will discuss this at our next meeting before the holiday, but it seems like there was general support in the listserv, I felt like. So this would be a chance to just talk about composting and people can either do it in their backyard or sign up with Black Earth or take it to the town transfer station for Black Earth. We would promote it in the winter and deliver the bins kind of in the spring. And I think, I don't know if Julie's still, Julie, I know you're off camera, but Julie sort of said, I think, okay, with me, do other, and we, again, like Olivia, that'd be a great outreach thing for you to do with the COA group, with the newsletter. Kavya, that'd be a great thing to think about how to use the high school kids to get that word out. Any concerns or objections? So Steve and Clovis chime in here. You guys were on the meeting, too.
I think, is that you? You come in here for a second. Okay. Lynn just came down the stairs. That's what I'm asking. I think one of the things that came out of that discussion was there's some education involved because it's about the composting you proposed. Yeah. Do you want to come in?
You mentioned her, so she's here. Hi. Okay. Hey, Lynn, you're now joining the Energy and Climate Committee. I just gave them the thumb. We're doing the update from Energize Whalen. She said, it seemed like there was general support. We'll get the green light from Energize Whalen to do the ordering of compost, make it easy for people to order the compost bins and try to have centralized distribution. And we're just talking about, does it, we'd be promoting composting backyard with black earth or drop at the transfer station. And it's also a point to really talk about food waste and other waste, educational. So I think, is it your sense from the group that we'll likely go ahead with it? I didn't hear anybody having big objections, right, Lynn? I don't know. Because, but, I mean, I didn't have big objections, but I also didn't get a sense that people were thinking it's going to be necessarily successful either. So I don't know. I think there might have been some hesitation about pre-buying things because black earth does exist. And I think one of the things that came out of it was maybe we need some education because we do both. But we know that there are things we cannot do in our backyard that we can do with black earth. Yeah. So, um, you know, I think it has to be coupled with some, uh, information about why you would do this and what it can give you in addition to what black earth can give you. Yeah. So I think, I mean, I feel like we didn't work that through. It was just on emails and stuff. And, um, the other concern I have is that, you know, we need a place to put this palette of, um, and I didn't know if we worked that out. And I also feel like there was some concerns. I mean, I'm actually, I'm, we are going to go ahead with this group purchase for, um, a group that I belong to called the Middlesex three, um, um, consortium, which is a bunch of, um, companies along the route three, um, corridor, but UMass Lowell is going to take the lead and they obviously have the space and they have the, um, they have a big, um, big, um, push on, um, sustainability. They have a big sustainability committee. And then of course they have a huge population to depict, to encourage the purchase of the, um, of the barrels. So we actually, you know, I was going to see how that all went. Um, and then, and, and, and when I thought, um, Julie, are you on right now?
Oh, that's yeah. So we've, we've actually done this before we did, we've done this with compost bins before and rain barrels before and cat organized it. So I think there's hesitancy to pre-buy, but if, if we could identify a vendor and if people could buy, I think Julie, the question is, could we, we did this before and the pickup was, um, at the, um, public works building, the, the new one, uh, um, uh, with all the DPW trucks. That's what we did it for because I was part, I was, I was, I handed things out to people. Um, um, so I know we've done it. So it's a question whether the town would be willing to have something shipped there if people had prepaid it and we could then, you know, we could provide volunteers that would check people off and they could pick their thing up. Right. Yeah. We can definitely work internal to town. I also, um, did this push a couple of years ago in Weston and I made a bunch of educational materials on what you do in your backyard versus what you give to black earth. Oh. Um, so I have all that info that I can also give you. Great. Wow. Perfect. I didn't know that existed. Yeah. That helps a lot. Yeah. So what, Julie, what do you think? Are you supportive of this or you're, I mean, if, yeah, I think if we can, if we can do it in the spring, um, and have it be part of like an, you know, like earth week push or something like that, or maybe the pickup. Like, I think we would open, they open the store sometime in January. It closes sometime in mid March and the delivery is in April. I think that's how it works. So I think we would promote it in February and March to get people to sign up. Right. And it would be a quick, you know, it's a great chance for us. Energize Whalen has its newsletter lists of about 900 people, but you know, the COA newsletter is whatever, 1800 people. And we could do something through the all schools and Kavya, this would be a great one, um, for you to help with. We do have what, 13,000, um, people in town or something. Yeah. We have about 4,900 households, about 13, 14,000 people. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we have a shot at this. I think, you know, they'd like us to take the 104, um, it's the smallest size, but I'm going to talk to them a little bit anyway, this week. Again, I have a meeting with them on Friday for this UMass Lowell version, and we're going to talk again about, cause they keep saying, don't worry about it. If you can't make it, we can work things out. It's not critical, but I do think let them run the store and not, and not look at it as a fundraiser, just look at it as an educational thing and promoting composting. Um, and yeah, so that would be my suggestion. I'm, I don't really want to make it a whole fundraiser. And I think if we just kind of don't get too crazy, Lynn, like we use our normal outreach channels, and then an article in the Wayland Post, Energize Wayland, these five other newsletters, the town stuff, and we make up, pick up easy. And it's just a chance to keep talking about sustainability with people. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I feel about it. Also, Olivia is doing an event on composting, um, for a, for a specific population as well. So we can tie all that in together. Um, that'll be at the council on aging and I think February or March. So, um, yeah, we should, we should just connect and, and make sure that we're coordinating on everything and, um, whatever you need to help with. I feel like then we need to probably have a meeting then with recycling connections and have. Yeah, I think Lynn, Lynn will be the point person. So, Lynn, why don't you file up with. Julie, should it be you and me? And then should anyone else want to join us? It could be you guys. Yeah. And Olivia should be there too. Okay. Yeah. I think. Olivia, I don't think we've met. Um, I, um, I, we definitely haven't, I'm Olivia, I'm the sustainability coordinator. Um, and I'm sorry, everyone. I forgot to mention that that was the, um, community education grant that the town just got. It's for, um, $1,850 and it's for South Asian population. Um, I'm hosting a family compost bin building and decorating night, um, very much in the beginning stages of that, but probably going to be around the springtime. So we definitely. Building compost. Um, yeah. Like with, you know, plastic Tupperwares and then putting in the dirt and then the food for like the worms that eat the food and you know, that kind of thing. All right. So this is. Like understanding how to do composting sort of in general. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We can talk more about it offline. Why don't you guys all talk about it? All right. Yeah. We'll connect later. We got the connection. But let's, let's try it. If you guys could keep, um, Kavya in the loop, cause I do feel like this is a good one that has a student piece and Clovis has had his hand up for quite some time. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. Got it. You're muted. I'll reach out to you, Julie, and we can take it from there. Okay. All right. Great. And do I have, um, Kavya, do I have your, are you related to the last person? Yeah. Yeah. She's the younger sister. I was going to say, I was thinking the same thing. Can you put your email? Well, I don't think the chat works, but in the chat, we don't have a chat. We don't have a chat. Sorry to interrupt. I have Kavya's school email. So if you just start a chain, I'll add Kavya in. Okay. Great. All right. Perfect. Super. All right. Clovis, back to you. Did you walk down? Yes. But I'm looking for my phone. See ya. Clovis. Not only did I join your committee, but I brought you a special guest. There you go. Clovis. Still Clovis. My only comment is Black Earth Education, because through email chain, I was not aware that it was available for free at the transportation. So for me, it's worthwhile to educate on that, to use it as much as possible for whoever is, I mean, using the transportation. It's available for everyone. Instead of dumping your bones or leftovers, leftover meats in your trash, it's a lot better to transport it to a transfer station. And I see something, it's a comment that you made. You could also buy the small kitchen trash cans just for that purpose. So I think it's maybe people sharing what they do specifically with Black Earth at the transfer station. If we know of anyone doing it, it could be interesting. You know, it's just making me think that maybe this is an interesting article for the Wayland Post as part of the outreach, Steve, which would be not just talking about the options, but highlighting people in Wayland who have made different choices about composting. So maybe Steve, you could, you're the comms guy, you could take a lead on thinking about that article for like February. I've also written a lot for the Wayland Post, so I'm pretty well connected. Good. Yeah. So June is great. But if you could do that, you know, we do what Clovis does. We do backyard composting, and we have a bin that we also take to the transfer station for our meat and bones and cheese. But if we could highlight people who have done three different things, great. Okay. Yeah, I do it all at my house too. So we have black earth, and I have a bin at home, and then I also garden a lot. So I'm happy to help however you'd like. This is a topic I know I can definitely support with. Okay. And that might be fun to make one of the profiles our new sustainability manager in what she's doing with composting. So I think that'd be great. So I think that is the Energize Wayland update. There's an event that we're promoting with Metro West Climate Solutions. Once I posted on the site, I really can't remember what it is. I'm sorry. It'll be in the next newsletter. It's like the 19th. I can't remember. You guys all get the Energize Wayland newsletter, so you'll hear about it. And that's kind of, I think, where we are at, right? Clovis, is there any? I mean, we're getting, continue to get heat pump coaching requests, less on the solar side, but we get a couple a month maybe. And, you know, coaching is still, you know, Julie, for us, a robust activity. You got a couple of solar coaches, a heap of coaches on this call. So that's it for me on Energize Wayland. Upcoming grants and potential projects. There were a couple of grant things that one I sent to you, Julie, and one Tom sent to you. So do you want to just take this one? Sure. I mean, I've been very heavily focused on the D-carb roadmap, and that's kind of been 100% of my time. But we're also, there is a grant. As soon as we get through Slackboard next week, we can talk more about what we want to do. But we're in budget season right now for the town. We have kind of several balls that could be chased if and when some decisions are made on what's going to be funded and what's not for the next fiscal year. I don't want to, like, promise that we can commit to anything. But, like, we have a few small projects that we could definitely potentially pursue with the MassCEC grant. There's, like, a schoolwork, a Green School Works grant, which may or may not apply to us. But, like, I have to look at the criteria a little bit. So maybe we could talk. It's a potential. Yeah. That was the one I flagged to you because it was for our schools. It was for, but maybe, you know, at the January meeting, you'll have a better update. Forget the deadline. I just don't, I hate it when we miss the deadline. Yeah, we have time for both. And we're in the middle, you know, because we're doing the DCARD world map, we're actively looking at, okay, what projects do we have over the next one to three years? Because some of these grants, those cycles take a long time between when, you know, getting the application together, actually, you know, applying, waiting for decision, and then being able to do implementation. So there's definitely certain projects that make more sense for this stuff. And some that make less sense. So we're just trying to be a little bit targeted with how we pursue this. And I will say, you know, based on the meeting that we had last month, we had Eversource come to town building and meet with Olivia and I. And we had a representative from three different parts of the Mass Save program, the municipal side, come and go through and finally answer the 3,000 questions I had about Mass Save as it applies to municipal incentives. And so I have a ton of information. So I'm thinking of that grant, Ellen, I'm also thinking of all the incentives that are available. And I'm also thinking about like all the projects that we have on the pitch for the next year. And we are getting a hand, you know, we're getting some pushback from the budget committee on what we can and cannot fund for the next year. So as you kind of get it, like we're, there's a lot being juggled right now. But yeah, absolutely. We will be pursuing grant. The only other one, Julie, the only other one, I just want to, and I know Tom sent one thing to you and you've, I know you got to focus on this climate leader thing, but you'll look at the one Tom said, the one that I've lost track of, we were denied for the first time ever when we applied for green communities this last time. We, we haven't hit the cap. We're, we're short of the cap. So I think we got one more application in us for green communities. And do you know when that is due?
I don't know when, I think it's going to be like April. So I just want to put that on your agenda. Yeah, that was, that's absolutely my back pocket. Okay. Because we have a lot of weatherization that we could do. And that's an easy green community grant. Yeah. The payback is the town building really needs weatherization. There's nothing in parts of that attic above the children's way, I think. So anyway, I mean, my, the window next to my desk has a breeze. It's, it's that, it's that leaky today, literally today we were putting weather stripping along the window because it's the whole building needs it. So, you know, is there, you know, Julie, just, I don't know. Yeah. We can talk about offline just for your institutional knowledge. We did this ESCO with 39 capital projects. The town building was excluded because at the time there was a thought about completely repurposing the town building for another use. And so it was excluded and we've paid the consequences of that for a while. Yeah. And we've been able to, as far as I know, we've done a lot of updates in the last year and a half since Mike took over as facilities director. We're busy in town building right now. And we'd absolutely have roof work that needs to be done, structural work that needs to be done and some insulation work that we can do as well. Um, but you know, how much do you invest in a, in a clunker? Um, and it is, it is a clunker. So, um, we are also looking at like for the three elementary schools, making sure the roofs will last the next 10 years. So whatever decision gets made on those roofs, on those buildings, um, we can at least get through the design and decision-making process, um, without needing to invest, you know, a million dollars in, in new roofs. Um, well, one of them is new. One, one is new ish. Um, and the other two are reaching end of life. Yeah. Um, so I just, you're, you're, you're, if you see grand opportunities, funnel them to Julie and Olivia and let's in January, maybe, um, Olivia's thinking about the, let's just look at that in January and get input from anybody here that might be productive. Okay. Next meeting. And just know, Ellen, just to close that out, literally everything that we do in facilities, we're looking at incentives and grants for anyway. So it is a, an absolutely, if we want to do a special project, then maybe that's more of the conversation because we're going to be pursuing this stuff anyway. It just does the common practice. Yep. So we have to. Yep. Um, we set the next meeting. So that's fantastic. We need to review and approve the November 5th meeting notes. Were those circulated? I have been away. So I'm out of the loop.
Those were the ones I think that I more or less wrote. And that actually, Olivia mostly wrote, turned out, but, um, uh, yeah, I think those were sent around. Were they sent around? I think so. Olivia, are you still there? Is not. Oh. Yeah. She dropped. I think she got booted. I think she did too. I'm looking now. Yeah. It was like almost immediate. Okay. Great. So as long as they were sent, I, um, would like to take a motion to approve the minutes. When someone make that motion, please. So moved. Neil, a second. Second. Steve, um, discussion on the minutes or comments.
Okay. I'll take a, I'll take a vote then. I'm going to abstain since I wasn't at the meeting. I really can't approve the minutes. So Tom. Aye. Uh, Neil. Aye. Bill. Aye. Steve, were at the meeting? No, you were not. I was not there. Okay. I'm not sure. I should have seconded, but I did. You can second it. And I think that's okay. Um, and Clovis non-voting. So that is one, two, three. So that's a three, zero, um, Neil. So I think they're approved. Three, zero, two. Three, zero, two. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. Do you want me to forward them to you so that you know what you. Sure. Why don't you send them around. It's fine. Yep. Okay. Okay. Um, generally, I think our meetings will go seven, seven, 30 to nine. I think that's usually what it takes for us. If people have ideas on speakers you want to have at, at, at a meeting in this coming year, like something we want to learn about, um, please suggest those things. Um, because I think this is a group that sort of likes to get into it, Julie. So if there's something that's like, oh, let's like, let's learn about that technology. Is that really ready? Maybe there's somebody good to, to talk about it. I don't know. So I don't have a specific thought. I just saying, let's be open to, to such a thing. Um, would be, um, would be great. All right. I need a motion to adjourn. That's top. That's bill's going to make that. I know. Sure. So moved. All right. Any objections to adjourning? Thank you very much.
Yeah, just for a few minutes, yeah. And then what happens? I'll be around the corner for ZBA. They're also here. I see. I see. So you're just saying they're more important than we are. You know, I don't know how to take that, Robbie. No. Well, thank you. I just want to thank you because we couldn't do it without you. So thanks very much. And obviously, you know, our protocol, people didn't get the panels and just keep promoting them. So I am expecting one more person. And before we, I would just want to, before I do the attendance, I do need someone to take notes. And part of notes is recording who's attending. So we're going to need to come up with a better schedule. We just rotate it. But I do need a volunteer for tonight. Whatever happened, this was a few months ago. And Abby said we wouldn't have to do minutes anymore, that the town was taking over that function. Right. Olivia, do you want to chime in on this?
Oh, I'm sorry. I don't think I heard about that. No. Yes. I don't think we're allowed to. Yeah. I think that Abby thought you were allowed to. And then, Bill, I think it got clarified that town staff are not allowed to do that. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Because Abby said other committees were doing it and we should do it, too. Yeah. I heard exactly the same from the board of assessors. But it's town employees doing it. So I'm surprised, basically. So maybe, Julie and Olivia, can you guys just double check? It seems like different boards are doing different things. Sure. Especially that there are two of you. It would help us. In the meantime. Yeah. I mean, my understanding is that staff aren't allowed to do it. It was definitely a policy in Weston. So this is different in Wayland. And I don't know. I feel like in general, things are harder here. So I would be surprised if there was. If you guys could just double check us, because it sounds like Clovis is saying one board, the staff does do it. Other boards, they don't. I don't actually know the rules. Yep. I can. Sorry. I'll report that. Yeah. The one other thing that could be the confusion is that some committees are using AI notes to generate a summary of the meeting, which is not the same thing as the meeting notes that need to get submitted and reviewed. And I would like to see if we can enable that, Julie, just so who's ever taking the notes if they, because sometimes you don't catch everything, like the exact wording of emotion. So I don't know, since I'm not the host, Olivia, you're the host right now. It looks like someone has to enable that. Um, so maybe we could practice, Olivia, you can see about enabling it for tonight, or let's do it for the next time. So back to my original point, before I do who's in attendance, I do need someone to take notes. And remember, you don't have to do everything. You have to record motions, significant points of the discussion, and who is attending.
Well, Tom did it at the last meeting.
Tom did the last meeting. So that means, uh, hey, Bill, can you? Usual lousy job. I mean, I need at least a couple of days notice. I'm sorry. I mean, I think I've been clear all along about that, but yeah, I'll do the next meeting. Okay. Bill can do next meeting. Who can do tonight?
Doesn't seem fair to make Steve on his first meeting do it. That seems mean. Okay. If, if we're going to have the AI notes, I'm happy to do it. Okay. Olivia, can you enable that? Um, I don't think she can enable it. It's an account setting. Okay. So here's what I'm going to say. And we don't have access to the account. So you're going to get very basic notes from me. That would be good. That's fine. I'm in favor of basic notes are fine. There's a, um, record button at the bottom of my screen. Yeah. It just gets you a transcript, which. It's not that helpful. Not, not, unfortunately it's not as helpful. So here's what I'm going to say, Neil, if you could do it tonight, Olivia and Julie, I'm sure we'll take decent notes and we can review it and spiff it up. Um, so Neil taking notes. So now that Neil's taking notes, I will note for the record in attendance committee members, Tom Siaka, Bill Huss, Neil Gordon, Ellen Tohn, and then Steve Garone and associate member Clovis Schaaf, right? Is that, if I got this right on who's the associate Clovis, you're the associate, right? And student representative. And obviously Neil, you'll be helped by the spelling by seeing everybody's little, um, uh, Kavya Swariker, who is, um, the younger sister of our first student rep, um, Tara, who we all adored, who's now at Harvey Mudd. So, um, I want to first give Steve, is this your first meeting with us? It is the first meeting I've been able to come to. Yes. Okay. So I would like, um, Kavya and Steve to introduce themselves briefly to everybody, um, before we get started. I think the rest of us all kind of know each other. Um, and one thing that was not on the agenda, I think it's on there for the last thing. I really, no one should leave early before we agree on the regular date and monthly time of this meeting. I'm tired of doing emails about this. So, um, maybe we'll actually do it before we get to the main thing in case people blip off early. Cause it's, it's annoying. All right. Steve, why don't you go first? Sure. Okay. My name is Steve Garone. I am a longtime resident of Wayland. I moved in, in 1980. Uh, so I've been here for a very long time. Um, and, uh, I am currently, uh, the chair. Chair of the Wayland Democratic Town Committee. I'm also involved in Energize Wayland. I kind of provide the, uh, interface between those two groups. Um, and, um, you know, very much into the notion of sustainability and renewable energy sources and, um, uh, been driving hybrid cars since 2006. Uh, I just got an electric car and, um, I'm sure other people are in this position. I'm also wrestling with the company that installed my solar panels. Long story. But, um, um, not a good, not a good face to put on at this point. But, um, anyway, decided that, you know, based on all the things that I'm interested in, in this regard, it might be a good idea to maybe, uh, apply my, uh, experience and my energies on this committee. So, I made that request and here I am. And I would say, Steve, correct me if I'm wrong. Steve has some background in marketing and communications. I do. I do. Yeah. So, that's a skill set we don't have on the committee that I thought would be useful to us. Correct. In fact, he and I worked together, I think in the seventies, I was the engineer and he was the marketing guy. That's right. Great. Digital Equipping Corporation. Remember them? Yes. All right. Uh, Kavya. And then Clovis, I don't know, have you introduced yourself to everybody in the committee at the last meeting? I wasn't there. Uh, two meetings before when I was, before I applied. Um, so Julie, I know we've met, we've energized Weyland, um, and Kavya, we've met at, um, the festival last Earth Day, maybe. I can't remember. Spring, I guess. Yeah.
Uh, so yeah, not as, uh, not as longstanding resident of Weyland as Steve. I've been only there for only 15 years, uh, with two kids in high school, former soccer coach, um, and I'm coaching homeowners for heat pumps, uh, and solar as well in Weyland and also neighboring communities. And he's been pretty active with the HeatSmart Alliance as well. Yeah. And Clovis has background more in the software computer sort of, uh, side of things. So helpful. And as we're looking at data stuff or manipulating things. All right, now to you, Kavya.
Hi, I'm Kavya. Uh, I'm part of, I'm part of Green Team in the high school. I'm the secretary. It's my second year. I'm really excited to be part of this as committee and look forward to it.
Kavya, one thing that I will follow up with you on is it seems like it works best when we have a student, if, if you take like an issue, that's actually a good fit for your skillset. And so as you're listening, please be thinking about, are some of these things that would be good to bring back to the Green Team or things that people in the high school might want to know or, um, and, and we can follow up after this to kind of think about that more. Julie doesn't know this and he says, predates both of you, but we had an initiative to lobby the school committee to ensure that every, um, person graduating from Wayland school districts graduated climate literate, which meant that they understood the causes, the consequences and actions you could take. And that, that meant not just in science curriculum, that meant, you know, across a bunch of things. And we were not successful in that. We had a couple of high school kids and a couple of members of the community work on that. So let's be thinking about, um, better connection between particularly the high school students and what we're doing here. And we can, we can think more about that, but I don't, I want to make sure you're engaged and not bored, you know, listening to a bunch of jargon and that we, that we build that bridge as effectively as we can. So open to your suggestions. All right. Is there any public comment? I don't think there's anybody else in the meetings. Okay. So why don't I hand it over? Um, oh, why don't I do this meeting thing first? Cause I really want to get this done. Um, so Julian and Olivia, are you, are you, um, we've, we've done two things. We've met in the evenings and then we've had four 30 meetings. I think Julie, you were saying four 30 meetings are not good for you. Okay. You're muted, Julie. Yeah. I, I have kids. We, I have to do pickups between four 30 and six. It's like the hardest time for me to meet. So I can do earlier or I can do later. Um, but between four 30 and six, it's the rush. So I like to propose that we go back to evenings. Then I think Mondays are terrible because there's a lot of other town meetings and that'll be conflict for, with bill for finance committee, which he has once a month. So Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, Thursdays are also, I think, busy zoom meetings for the town. So that leaves and Fridays are out. So that leaves us to Tuesday and Wednesdays. I, Steve, I believe you have a standing conflict on Tuesdays, correct? No, I have a standing conflict, the second Tuesday of the month. Okay. So, um, could we try for Wednesdays now is good for me. Could we try Tuesdays and John Harper can't attend, but he said Tuesdays, Wednesdays, fine. Could we try for Tuesdays, but not the second Tuesday of the month. Um, we could try for the, I don't even know what day it is, right? We could try for the third Tuesday of the month, because I think that'll put us in January. Like the first week back is, okay, this, the third Tuesday of the month is the 20th, right? The 20th, fine. So what that means is there will be months where some people can't make it, but you will get it on your calendars and we will just try to have a quorum. Um, so we will try for the third Tuesday of the month, um, I, you know, maybe Olivia could do this instead of me because I only use a Google calendar and I, I tend to, I create a Google calendar invite from my personal calendar because I don't have a calendar for my Wayland account, but maybe Olivia or Julie could help us with this and create the invite standing and invite all of us so I can get it off my personal thing. Um, yeah, I think that would be great. It also allows us to add the agenda once it's posted and do meeting reminders, um, and just provide that staff support. Great. That's what I did in Weston, so I'm happy to do that. That would be great. If you could do that, it'd be great. I will have to tonight delete, I'm making a note, delete my calendar invite. You guys are on it. Perfect. All right, we're done. Will they be, will they all be by Zoom? I think at this point, we're going to stay with Zoom. Um, if we're going to do an in-person one, we will decide ahead of time if we want to do that. But I think Julie and Olivia, that works well for you guys. That works great, especially because we have that long Monday. Yeah. All right. You work very long days on Mondays, so it's nice to me. Okay. So that would be the plan to stay. Can we do a combination? I mean, can you have in-person with Zoom option? I know that's, it's technologically feasible for the town. I think Julie would prefer to be on a Tuesday night, not in the office is what you're saying. Right. But she can do this by Zoom. A hundred percent. And we can also, I mean, we can also every other do an in-person option. Um, I think we had a lot of challenges with the technology in the last one. Um, so if we could just wait a couple of months for, um, the town IT staff to figure out remote meetings at the COA. Um, and once they get that down, then we'll be able to do it more. Um, obviously those that were there saw it was, um, non-ideal. Um, okay. That seems like a good suggestion. We could put that off. Steve? Yeah, I just, I don't want to throw a monkey wrench in the works here, but I, I just want to, um, state an unknown. I'm also on the surface water quality committee and we're wrestling with the same issue, you know, when we're going to have our meetings and we have had some meetings on the third Tuesday of every month or some months. Um, so, uh, you know, I, I, why don't you just say we used to resolve issues with my children and my husband and I about work calendars with the four-year-old world. I called it first. So you can just say we called it first. And John, I would say, oh, someone's got to be at home with the kids. I called it first. I called it first. So I, hopefully that won't be an issue, but, but leave it where it is. I don't want you to send them an email saying, I now have a commitment on the third Tuesday of the month. Good, good technique, but I'm going to do it. All right. Now, thank you for doing that. I hate the logistics of that, but I'm thrilled that we have a solution. Let's stay remote until Julie feels like we're ready technologically to do that. Um, I would say I'm likely to be remote for the next four months. So, um, but you guys are welcome to meet in person. Um, what was the issue? Sorry. Um, what was the issue last month? Because I remember two months back, except for batteries, it worked kind of okay. So I'm curious to see what happened last, last time. Um, here, when we're doing our committee meetings, IT needs to be involved in setting up, not something that Olivia or I can do ourselves. Um, and so the result is that the IT staff that are assigned to do remote meetings is able to do the meetings at COA because there are also meetings happening at town building. Um, and we just had this conversation today. There's a lot of committees that will be moving to COA to have hybrid meetings. Um, we're just, every committee is still trying to figure out like what the best practice is going to be. Um, and there's a lot of like sound quality issues in town building. And, um, I think if we just give it a couple of months for everyone to figure it out and get into more routines, then it'll be easier for us to do that without, um, having the challenges that we had last time, which is that they didn't start the meeting and we couldn't find them to start the meeting. And so it became a whole, you know, like, is this technically a public meeting? If the information changed and you get what I'm saying? Like there's a whole, it's just more complicated. It's not like a regular staff. It sounds like a staffing issue. Clovis, not a technology issue. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so if I understand you couldn't get a recording as an outcome of the last session. Sure. Um, we did, we did get a recording and it's posted. It was just a different zoom link. So there's like, I think five, I think this is Wayland zoom three or something. There's like five town zoom accounts. So I happened to have a login to like the wrong zoom account. So I logged in and like unofficially recorded, but like, because of public meeting law, we have to follow the exact link that's been posted. Um, but we ended up posting it and it like, cause we had quorum and we didn't have anyone question it like a public complaint. Um, the clerk just counted it as a public meeting, but yeah, going, going forward, we just need more support from way cam. Like Robbie comes and starts the meetings and he, he wasn't aware of our meetings. So we were kind of waiting on him and he had no idea we were waiting. So, but all good. In essence, it's, we can do exactly what we're doing tonight. And if, if me, Neil and Tom decide to be in the same room, you know, that's, that's, you know, you're all welcome here. Right. So, so, so, so, I mean, it is possible. That would be a fine solution. So that would be fine. Yeah. Yeah. I, I really like in person. I'd like to physically see people if we can, but, um. Okay. I'm going to move us on from this. Cause I think we all agree. We would like the option of hybrid and now I want to keep us moving. So over to you, everybody satisfied the resolution. Julie will let us know when we have the green light to go with this. And those people want to meet in person can do that. All right, Olivia, um, updates from you. Um, I'll keep it short and sweet. As I had mentioned, we were going to partner with a massive approved vendor, um, officially Michael McCall and the select board approved moving forward with homeworks, um, a massive approved vendor. They offer home energy assessments. They do heat pump financing and installs, um, and, you know, home weatherization. So we ended up choosing them cause they had worked with a lot of surrounding towns, um, and I vetted, um, we had three responses to our RFQ and all of the references that came back kind of pointed me in the direction of homeworks. Um, so we ended up officially moving forward with them. I just had my first meeting with them. Um, they offer free canvassing, flyers, tabling at different events. Um, one of the things I'm really hoping to achieve with working with them is getting more data on what people are doing in their homes. Um, for an example, I feel like we don't have enough data on how many people have heat pumps in their homes, how many people have, um, solar on their roofs. I mean, we could drive around and count, but it'd be nice to be able to have a survey. Um, so working with them to have a Google sheet that, um, they'll have people fill out. That was something this meeting I think is going to be full, um, for our decarbonization roadmap, but maybe in future meetings, we could work on coming up with a survey together that we might want to ask, um, residents about what they're doing in their home to be more carbon neutral. Um, and, and then another idea I had with them was tabling at the COA. Um, I don't know how many of you have been over to the COA at like 11 AM, but it's packed. So I feel like it's a really good opportunity to reach the public. Um, Tom, did you have a question? Uh, well, uh, a suggestion, maybe the best way to find out who's got a heat pump is through, through every source now with the heat pump. Tom, we have this data, Tom, we have the data for mass save and we can go to the climate record. But that's not comprehensive, Ellen. That's the problem. Right. But I think surveying is too scattershot. We really won't get it. I mean, what. Not arguing with that. What I'm saying is any, I, I presume anybody with half a brain who has a heat pump is signed up for the heat pump rate because it's a significant amount of money. And, um, if, if we can find out through, through, through every source who, who has, that's probably a better count than the mass save count. Um, I would venture to say, I'm not sure. I agree. I'm not sure people, I agree. Everybody with half a brain should have signed up for the heat pump rate. And I still think people haven't done it. Um, and I've just had talked to somebody who was very, very knowledgeable and had not yet done it. Um, cause their heat pump, like mine predated, um, the mass save rebate. So we have, one of the things I think we have to do is do continue to pound that drum of getting people on the heat pump rate. That said, I think looking at the climate tracker data, Julie, you have that I've sent you the link and Olivia, I've sent you the link. That was the mass save data when it was up before they pulled it down. That's 422, I think heat pumps. And then we've looked previously, like when we installed ours, I'm sure you guys, I, um, building inspector came. So it's somewhere in the munis data set. So I just think Olivia, that it will be much more accurate and comprehensive than scattershot observing. If you want to get other information out of serving and engaging people, dandy. But if we really want the best count, we should do what Tom's saying. The Eversource, the mass save data and assessor or building inspector data, though, that really will give us a much better number. I think Neil. Um, it, you know, Olivia would be really helpful if we had like a brief bulleted scope of work because, you know, you just rather quickly outlined all the things that you said they were going to do. Most of which went right quickly over my head. And my second question is like, so what's the period of service on this contract? When, when do they start? When's it done? It's a non-binding contract, but we can be with them for up to three years. Um, we can also technically partner with another vendor if we wanted to, I can send you guys, um, the MOU that they replied to the RFQ with. And then that has everything that they've, you know, promised us and whatnot. Sounds great. I would just say, and I've said this to Olivia, but Julie, we're here then we we've partnered twice before we partnered with, um, next step living, uh, and we did one and we lasted this a few years ago with Nico, where we got 287 people to sign up for energy audit. So this is a somewhat saturated market. We don't have that many new people moving in and out and we have very good PowerPoint deck on what was the most effective outreach strategies from that. I've sent it to Olivia if you, and cause we, and, and we did have bi-weekly calls with them and their outreach team. Um, and I will say going house to house is not effective in many communities. It was very effective in Wayland. The single other most effective thing was the census mail or back page. That's where we saw the biggest, um, increase. Now we've used that. I've already given Trudy other content for that because we weren't ready to do this then. Um, so I also hope that we can use this, Olivia has used noted, to have them pay for a mailing, which we have no money to do to targeted groups of households with slightly different messages. People with oil, you know, Paul Dale's run that. I think it's either 1600, 1800 households that have oil. There's a special message for them. And there might be a different message, um, for people like we're in a condo who, that was built and their heating systems are now 18 years old. Like that's it. So I think some market segmentation would be interesting in the mailing as opposed to something generic. And it'd be interesting. Maybe they could even join an energy committee meeting and kind of talk that, talk that through a little bit and be curious if they've done that kind of segmentation in other communities. Um, I'll definitely bring that like up to them. And, um, like I said, when, once we've gotten through the decarbonization roadmap and the EV first policy, and there's a little more time, we can definitely talk through ideas people have, and I'll send you the MOU just so you guys have more context. Sorry about that. Um, and then we can come up with some type of survey that people would be interested in. Um, I definitely don't want to repeat what we already have, like what we already know, but kind of utilizing their, if they are going to be talking to people, getting some type of information, but we can, um, work on that together in maybe next month or something. Yeah. Just before you forget it, just for the notes, Olivia, to Tom's point, if they're talking to someone and somebody says they have a heat pump, really great to say, do you know, are you on the heat pump rate? Like that would be great. Cause now you're actually delivering value that they can actually absorb next week. I got my, my, uh, my first bill, by the way, um, after signing up and Eversource did it right somewhat to my amazement. Well, I just applied cause I'm pre not yet. I had to just upload stuff. I would just, uh, sorry, it's a non sequitur, but we have the ability to put articles in the Weyland post about different things. I've written a few I've asked Julie to do on introducing herself, but I would love to do one on this heat pump rate. They'll only publish their article. If it has like a Weyland slant and Tom, what you just said to me was the Weyland slant. So I was wondering if we get like two or three people that are on the heat pump rate to talk about how it changed their bills, that would give it a Weyland slant. What do you guys think about that? Yeah. Good idea. Okay.
Okay. I just want to say that, um, I'm really glad we're dealing with this question personally, because I am literally yesterday and today and tomorrow in the middle of installing two heat pumps in my house. And I had a question in my mind, which is how do I sign up for the heat pump rate? And you're answering the question for me. Yeah. You will be automatic. Because it's your, it's just people like me who went before the mass save was tracking these rebates. Okay. You'll be automatic. I never went through, through a mass. And Tom never got a rebate. I got a rebate, but it was before the data system was. Yeah. And I have to get the rebates done too. But I also want to say that I've had my daughter and son-in-law and my granddaughter living in my house for three days because their heating system went and I pitched them on heat pumps and they are centrally heating their house now with a heat pump. Still in installation, but we'll get in there. By the way, the link that Olivia sent out a couple months ago was what did it for me. I mean, that got me right into Eversources and I just put in my, you know, billing information and it was done. So, Olivia, whoever you can send that link to would be great because it worked perfectly. I mean, I can forward it to the group again. So you have that. Yeah, but it's a broader thing. Like I, I'm running the next Energize Wayland newsletter and this is going to be my lead thing, but Olivia and Julie, you know, you guys have the town newsletter and this would be, you know, reminding people over and over again, it's cold. You might be worried about your bills. If you have a heat pump, you can reduce your bill by 24%. Go to this page, look at your bill to make sure you're on the, whatever it is, HP1. And if not go here, it's very easy what you have to upload. So the next due date for an article for the Wayland Post is this coming Friday. And then next one will be two weeks. This will be January. We're just not going to get to it. Barb Hefner and I are coordinating the schedule thing. I'm trying to line Julie up for January. And I think we could do this for January, but I need like three people who can show reductions in their bills. Sure. So, Tom, you're number one. I am absolutely one. Yeah. So we need to find two more. Yeah. Mine went up. So I probably not a good choice. I mean, the rate didn't go up, but my usage went up because I added a heat pump. But if you've got the rate, you can calculate what you're saying. Yeah. But I think we need like real numbers, not the extrapolation from the story. Because I also have community solar. And so I'm getting rebates from that. So it's good. Okay. So I have last month. Okay. Tom, Tom, I want to find two more people. So maybe let's just try and come up with a couple of people.
But other people that have been, I'll ask Ann and, you know, Tom, Steve, Paul Dale, people they've coached, that might be a good. Yeah. I know one, I know one couple, the Rubinfelds, who had heat pumps installed many years ago. And I know he has mentioned to me that he wants that rate. Maybe he's done it already. I'll ask him. Okay. All right. I'll, I'll, I'll reach out to Ann on this. Bill, you're usually our writer of articles. So if I kind of get you three people through email, it's just we're entering the holidays. I'm a little, I get you some people and we give them a couple of questions. You can maybe compose something. Yep. I can do that. Yep. I can interview them or, you know, whatever. My email, great. Whatever you get me, contact people, any background. But yes, I can take it. Okay. So Tom's one and I'll get you two. I think three would be fine, Bill. I may. I may know one more too. Okay. So. Bill, if you need any help. As a note taker, I would point out we're now 15 minutes behind schedule. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. We're done with this. So Neil, what's really helpful for me on these notes is if there's like something in the end, like action items, like Ellen, work with Bill on the article. That's helpful to me. Yeah. I put that we're trying to get an article. Okay. Great.
Um, that, that was kind of it. I've also, I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with Tony and Margie Lee. Um, they offer a climate, like, I think they call it, let's talk about climate change. It's a set of classes they're offering at the COA. Um, it's once a month, it's a nice group of people and, um, they kind of come with a topic. Julie and I went and talked about just what we're doing. Kind of, we kind of just talked about what we're doing at the town level. Um, like our green communities application, our annual report, I should say stuff like that. Um, but I've been attending those meetings. So all of those people are actually going to email the select board in support of the EV first policy and the decarbonization roadmap. Um, so it's a really nice group of people. If anyone's interested, I can forward you, um, their schedule. Um, they're reading a book called Here Comes the Sun and it references some climate action in Framingham, which is kind of cool. Um, but just like a nice group. Um, and I'm also doing a rec, like collab. Um, we're doing an event. I'm calling t-shirt to totes in January. So kids can bring in like an old shirt and then we'll turn it into a tote bag. Let's talk about, you know, reusing fashion, no fast fashion, that kind of thing. But sorry, but yeah, that's, that's pretty much all from me right now. Thank you. I'm just wanting Olivia to attend that for, for, for months and always wind up with a conflict. Maybe the next month I'll get to it. I'll, I'll send you guys the, their time. I think it's January 15th is the next meeting, but I'll send that to you. Okay. So Olivia, I'm just hoping just, um, caveat, this would be a good one for you to, and Olivia to coordinate on that activity she's doing around the totes, right? Yep. I can, I'll reach out to Kavia. That would be a fun thing for you to be a part of if you're available. I'll email you later. And I think as we think about outreach for home energy audits, let's think about how to use a high school and Kavia for also spreading the word. Uh, let's just think about that channel. Okay. All right. Um, Julie, let's say on the agenda, I already said to Julie, the times are too aggressive. I, I, the topics were all good, but we are not, we're going to be done at nine, not at eight 30 guys. So, um, cause I know the next one is a bunch of discussions over to you, Julie. Um, so we're going to talk about the decarbonization roadmap and the, uh, EV policy. I wanted to start with the EV policy because I feel like this topic has been discussed and discussed and discussed, uh, Tom and I had a chance to sit down and really comb through the EV policy and came up with some good edits and changes. And then after that, I met with Ellen and Bill Whitney to comb through it again and provide a couple of more edits. So this has been reviewed, edited, perfected. I think it's the best possible, um, policy we can put forth right now. Does anyone have any questions or want to discuss it at all? Did, did we wind up getting it? No, the vote, I actually, Julie, can you just frame this on like where we are and what the select, when the timing of everything is? Cause that I think will help people understand where we're at. Sure. Climate leaders application is due December 31st. In order to be able to apply for it in this round, um, we need the EV first policy passed and we need the building decarbonization roadmap passed, um, both by select board, both have not been passed yet by select board. Both, um, the EV policy has been put forth to select where this will be the third, fourth meeting that it has been put forth to select board on, um, we're really fingers crossed hoping for the vote on this one, um, the decarbonization roadmap, this is the first chance we've had to have it reviewed by the select board. So it's a little bit more, um, of an ask by them. Um, we're doing work behind the scenes to get the policy or to get this, um, as close as it can be and as passable as it can be, um, and as simple as a, a yes, as it can be so that we can get that, um, application in by the end of the year. If we can't, it's not the end of the world. Um, it's just that we have some projects that could really benefit from the money and the funding cycle is such that if we don't get it in by the end of the year, then we're waiting until February, 2027 to apply for that million dollar grant. And that's just a really long, long, long lead time. Um, and there's a lot of work that needs to get done on a lot of buildings in town. So, um, the sooner we get access to that funding, the less it will cost the town to do these projects and the more we'll be able to like, you know, push forward with our goals. So that's the overarching. And the meeting for the select board is Monday night. Yeah. The meeting is Monday night.
Okay. Um, so does anyone have any questions on the EV policy? Well, I want to know what happened after you and I worked on it. What, what was it? Just a couple of minor changes. Um, you and I had talked about removing a section and Bill Whitney agreed with that. Um, a couple of minor, uh, clarification. I think it was like clarification. There were clarifications about, I think we were all clear about the exemption for heavy duty vehicles, but the way it was written was very cumbersome and confusing. And Bill said, this is cumbersome and confusing. Let's, it wasn't substantive, Tom. It was really helping the reader understand the intent. Yeah. I think that's how I would characterize it. Julie, do you agree? A hundred percent. Agree. Yeah. I would say. Um, I had, it was actually very nice to have Ellen and Bill, um, comb through it at that level, because I feel like that's what select board here really wants is a, a level of detail, um, to the wording, um, because of their backgrounds in law. So, um, all good things. I think it's in a really good place. So I would say the, um, and I sent this to you and I have been in touch with some of the select board members. And I think just being really clear that this is really no added cost to the town, Julie, we've talked about how to frame that, but you just really have to, I know. Um, so I think it's in great shape, um, Olivia, great that getting other people to weigh in. I think the important message is passing these makes us eligible to be a climate leader, which makes us eligible for a million bucks. And these are the right policies and they're consistent with our time clowns climate plan, and they should not cost us more money. The, the, the, is your, the ZEV policy. I liked EV first. It was easier to say, Julie, but the ZEV policy. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, and it's probably. Zero energy vehicle. It's called the ZEV policy, Tom. Okay. By the way, it's probably too late and, and, you know, isn't all that helpful at this point, but, you know, in the future, feel free to pass this through the finance committee. I mean, we haven't seen or talked about this at all. So to the extent that we can sort of say, yes, it's not going to have any financial impact. I think that we're going to sell it. Uh, and again, we're not going to have a meeting until January, so we're not going to be able to help you out, but in the future, you know, please, you know, encourage everyone to take it to the finance committee. And Bill, you're on the finance committee? Yes, I am. Great. Yeah, I mean, if, in an ideal world, if I had had a little bit more time, I mean, we, I came in and we've been sprinting to this since I started. But my, my typical process is to involve a number, have this reviewed by different committees over a period of a couple of months, getting their stamp of approval as we march forward. So that by the time it gets to select board, it's already been reviewed and approved by the people that they really want to hear from. And FinCom is always on that list. So absolutely. I mean, if it doesn't get passed, then you will see it in January. All right. Okay. T-carb, Robinaff, Julie? Sure. Has anyone had a chance to look it over at all? Yeah, I agree. Great. I don't look it yet. I'll give you the, I'm going to give you the 20,000 foot view of this plan, and then we can talk about discussions, questions, and then I'll point your eyes to the part that really like could use feedback, I think. The 20,000 foot view of this is, it's a non-binding, it's essentially your facilities department doing homework that it has never done before, because facilities departments don't do stuff like this. We don't make a 25 year decarbonization plan. It's non-binding. It's really just looking at, you know, a building, a typical municipal building has a 70 to 90 year lifespan. So you have that long before you really need to make either a major renovation or a replacement of that building. You have roofs that can be anywhere from 25 to 35 years before they need to be replaced. You have gas heating systems that which have a 25 to 35 year lifespan. So we take all that information. We look at when those systems were previously updated and when they are about when they are due to be updated again. And we take that information. We say, okay, rather than replacing in-kind, what if we were to electrify those systems? Obviously, there's a lot of engineering that goes into it. You can't just buy a new toaster and, you know, plug it into the wall. It's not a whole building energy system design, right? So we have to do engineering. We have to bring in a consultant. We would have to do that with new equipment anyway, because we're not going to replace in-kind the same boiler that we bought 30 years ago, the technology we have to. So this plan is essentially saying, these are our opportunities to update our equipment. How can we leverage existing funding mechanisms like utility incentives and grants and use that funding along with our existing building capital plans and electrify our buildings? And then just getting a timeline of when that's going to take place helps us to begin to prepare, okay, we know that we've got 10 years before we're going to need to do a major renovation on, say, you know, like all three elementary schools are reaching end-of-lifetime. So it doesn't really make sense for us to invest in electrifying those buildings because we have a bigger conversation that needs to occur. And the same is true for town buildings. Which has a roof that is reaching failure in a couple of different sections. So, you know, do we want to invest in a really nice roof or do we want to patchwork repair this so that we can limp along for the next 10 years and then either a larger renovation or replacement of that building? And then you have other things like the high school or, you know, the police station, which are in great condition and are not due to be replaced or repaired at any time soon. So we look at, you know, doing electrification for those buildings. So that's what this plan is. It gets updated every three years. If we get approved as a climate leader, we will be doing this exercise every three years. We'll be looking at what we've done so far. We'll be seeing the impact that it's had on our energy usage. And then we'll be forecasting out for the next three years, but 2050, because that's when the state's decarbonization goals come to fruition. So in this report, the most important section, I think, or the thing that I – one of the main reasons why I wanted to author this rather than submitting what Power Options did, which was fine, but I think could be really confusing. Somebody who's not deeply familiar with electrification and what it takes is Appendix C, which looks at 11 buildings in our portfolio, and it says, all right, in 2027, we're going to do this. In 2035, we're going to do this. In 2045, we're going to do this. And it goes building by building, and it shows you how each of those – each of those updates or upgrades, how they would impact our carbon emissions for building. And we can have a discussion because of the way I wrote it as to whether or not you think that data is accurate and whether those estimates are accurate or not. But DOER is going to do that anyway. So the bigger discussion can then be, you know, based on this information. If we know we have to do all these systems – all these systems replacements, you know, in the next 10 years, how do we want to proceed with updating this building, right? So we can have conversations like that because of the plan that we have. So I think that gives you enough background and context. Does anyone – or want to discuss any sections of the plan? Yeah, I just had one comment, which, you know, if you indulge the editor in me, I started by reading the executive summary. And executive summaries are named that because executives don't have enough time to read the whole report. So essentially, one of the key points in this report. As I read it, it's like this is all retrospective and there's very little, if anything, about the future. And then I dug into the depth of the report, and we do talk about the future, and we do have a roadmap. But the executive summary – we should assume that, you know, a lot of people aren't going to read anything more than the executive summary. So I would include a lot more of the future in the executive summary than is currently there. Again, it's not content. It's really presentation. And if you're like me, you just read the executive summary, and that's the report.
Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. I'll take that into account. I had three comments. Number one, I like the writing. I mean, I wouldn't argue with Bill's point, but overall, I thought it was a good writing job. One – well, one overall issue I have, I guess, but specifically about heat pump, water heaters. I am very interested in the issue of cost effectiveness, and I'm not convinced that heat pump, water heaters are certainly universally cost effective. And right now, I'm skeptical that they're very often cost effective. But in any case, I would assume that if they're cost effective at all, it's in a place where there's a large hot water usage and not in places where there isn't a large hot water usage. So, for example, when I look at the high school where kids are playing sports and then they shower afterwards, well, probably there's a large water usage there. And a heat pump hot water heater with a lot of storage to handle those peak times, you know, right after this sports event is over, might be appropriate. In the town building, though, I think it's just hand washing in the bathrooms there, isn't it? And a little spot heater, you know, those local under-sink two-gallon, you know, electric-resistant spot heater things might be just fine in that environment. And I don't know where you would install a heat pump water heater to feed the bathrooms. So, I would put in something about evaluating the particular usage pattern of, you know, in the various places. I don't know if you need them in the elementary schools at all. Are there showers in the elementary schools? I don't think so. Okay, so that was – and a general comment about cost-effectiveness. Yeah, I saw the message over and over. I hear the message that our elementary schools need replacement. On the other hand, you know, put up a few layers of isocyanurate on the insides of those walls. Cover them with plywood, replace the windows with R5 triple-pane windows. And, boy, you can do wonders for the energy efficiency of an old building without knocking down the building and starting from scratch. So, I, you know, I wish somebody would look at options less than complete replacement as a possibility. Oh, sure. Yeah, Tom, if I can just make a comment on that. All of this is just very generalized. Something will need to be done. So, even replacing all of your windows and gutting the building would be a major renovation or replacement, which is how it's written. And all of this stuff will be in committee for many years and discussed over and over again to the point where everyone finally gives up and makes a decision and then moves forward with that. So, you know, like, one of the great things about this is that we're saying, this is your time frame. Committee makes a decision you want to make, right? Like, move forward as you desire. But, you know, the guts of this building are, have a limited time frame. So, you have a limited amount of time by which to make this decision, right? It's not in perpetuity for as long as you'd like. We will have to do major updates and investments. Okay. And last comment, kind of specific. You talk about using a ground source heat pump at the high school, potentially. You're talking. Are you muted?
Sorry. Yeah. My kid came in. Oh, okay. And the high school is entirely in the recharge area for the happy hollow wells.
I'm not sure you can sink wells or anything for a ground source heat pump without affecting the happy hollow wells, which will remain under the current plans our major water source. So, I'm, again, a little, I mean, I love the idea of ground source heat pumps. Why don't you propose that for the town building, which has, I think, a lot of land around it and no conflicts like that that I'm aware of. But the high school, again, I mean, the high school is built in the wrong place. The wells were built in 1950. We built the high school in 1960 right on top of them, and we shouldn't have. But they're all there now, and you need to be careful about that interaction. I just want to say one thing about the plan for this, which is the thing we're trying to do right now, and Tom, I really appreciate these are all terrific points. The thing we're trying to do right now is check this box, because DOER says you can't be a climate leader unless you've done some thinking about decarbonization, right? So, this is some thinking about it. This is something we can change and modify, so I think this is good input for Julie, but she may not be able to get all that stuff in there in the next couple days. This is saying, this is kind of first plus, this is a living, breathing document. We're working on it, but DOER needs a piece of paper saying you've done some thinking, you've looked at your data. And for ground source heat pumps, I encourage Julie to use the verb explore, because that's actually what we're talking about doing here. So, let's, I don't think this will be our only bite at the apple in terms of giving input to Julie and the facilities team about what would happen with different buildings. So, I just want to set expectations, because Julie's got to finalize this probably tomorrow to get it in the packet for Thursday. So, let's, I think, if you give comments, if there are things, like Bill, I thought great comment at the executive summary, because the select board will actually read that. Tom, these are all great points, and Julie may not be able to address them all before tomorrow. Okay. I had a very similar reaction, which was, you know, fundamentally, this is a big policy document, and all the very specifics, you know, you run the risk of the conversation we just had, which is, you know, people talking about, you know, renovations to the high school that aren't going to happen for 25 years or whatever the heck it is, thinking that this document is, thinking that this document is the specifics of that's already decided. And I think somewhere in the document, you said something like, I don't know, paraphrase, this isn't real. But I think you've got to really emphasize, you know, this is more about the sequence and the criteria that you would use to evaluate projects, and the fundamental assumptions that we're going to, when we have the opportunity to replace systems, become more energy efficient, switch to renewable energy sources. I mean, what are the big policy points that this document outlines rather than, you know, I mean, all the things Tom said are true, and they could all be different in five years because the technology will have changed. So, you know, you know, hot water, you know, heat pumps might be remarkably great in 10 years, who knows, but that isn't the point, you know, your point is, you know, efficiency, cost effective, renewables. My only other question, and this is just because I'm kind of, kind of slow, does moving to electrification assume that the grid has become renewable? I mean, that, to me, to me, you maybe should make that point a little stronger, because it took me two readings to kind of find that and sort of get myself comfortable with, oh, going from gas to electricity. Electricity actually makes sense, because the electricity will be fine, which, you know, it isn't today. You know, it says that Whelan already produces 25% of its own electricity via solar. You know, we don't seem to, I don't, do we have a parallel plan that gets us to us producing 100% of our electricity? You know, that might be a cool plan. Yeah. We're not actually producing it. We're using net median credits, but we won't get into that level of D. I think, Julie, this is overall, like, a super good point, because people will, like, nitpick in this. So there's got to be something in the executive summary that says what Neil is saying, that as we look at this, we're always going to do these things. We're going to assess buildings. We're going to look for efficiency first. We're going to look for strategic electrification. You know, we're going to try and get ahead of things before they break, whatever that is. And then just say that the projects identified, particularly those that are further out, are our best guess. But this is a living, breathing document that will be updated as technology changing. I don't know if you can say that often enough. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I did a lot of, I will say this, just to the points about, like, specific decisions that are going to be made on electrification. It's intentionally nonspecific. I'm not saying we should do geothermal anywhere. I'm not saying that we need to adopt a certain technology at any location, because I don't know. And I wouldn't put us in a position where we are at all making it appear as though we have that decision made. We don't. Everything's going to have to go through committee. Everything's going to have to go through a process. And really, like, as we're entering this beginning phase, which we're not, because we've been doing this work already. You know, like, this is work that has been in process for the last, you know, what, almost five years since the camp plan was adopted. We're just now putting it on paper. It's actually since we did the ESCO, actually, Julie, when we did the ESCO, that's when it really started. Yeah, I mean, so this is, exactly. So this has been a process where, you know, we have already been looking at our heating set points. We have already done energy audits. We have already done some air sealing and insulation. Yes, we have more that we can do. But we're, we have a, more of a, I agree with you, more of a sequence, a process by which we are articulating how we're focusing on energy. Efficiency, saving the town money on the front end before we're making electrification decisions and investing in equipment that would electrify our building. Julie, do you feel like, yeah, I mean, do you feel like what you've gotten for us must is helpful? Because we can keep talking, but I'm conscious of the time. And I think people have made their points. I know you're under the gun, so to speak, to, to turn a doc. So Bill is a terrific reader of like executive summaries. And, you know, if you wanted to get a, get, or, or, or Neil, Neil used to run the, you know, Acton Children's Museum. So he sort of operates his left. So, you know, if you, if you guys are checking your email tomorrow and Julie just wants to send around the executive summary to people that you could, we can't discuss, but you can just give Julie feedback directly. Yep. Yeah. I'd be happy to do that. And I mean, basically, and to some extent, it's a summary of what we just said, you know, Julie's introduction, Neil's point, you know, that's the executive summary. And I would defer all of my editorial to Bill. Great. All right. So Julie, you can send it to Bill and I, and we'll just go with that. And Tom, all good points. But I think for the select board, boy, I don't want to be in that discussion with them about specific technology. Well, then she does talk about grounds. I know. I know. So if you want to avoid the rat hole, not talk about that. I'm going to, I'll double check that, Tom. I'm pretty sure that I did not put that in because I would not commit to doing that at the high school. I also wouldn't commit to it at town building. Yeah. Why don't you look at it, Julie? Somehow Tom got that impression. So Julie, for the board, Julie's putting, you've already shared it with Michael, right? So they'll be in the packet, the ZEV policy, the decarbonization roadmap, a slide, kind of introducing them, and a little summary of why we did the decarbonization roadmap. Is that basically it? Yes. Okay. So. Yes. We talked about, Ellen, we talked about a letter. And basically, I'm going to go through the executive summary. I will use Neil's points and Bill's points, and I will work with both of you to make sure that that says what it needs to say so that if they read nothing else, they understand the intent of the document. And then I will take that information, and I will put it into a letter, which will be the header of this document, which is probably all they will read.
And I think some of the other feedback we, yeah. I'm curious what you guys think. Some of the other feedback we got was something like, what is this document, and what is it not, right? What's it trying to do, and what does it obligate the town to do? The answer, what does it obligate, is nothing. You know, what is it, you know, it's a cut at a plan, but it is not binding obligations to do specific technologies at specific schools at specific times. And what it's doing is laying out best practices for managing our facilities well with a goal towards decarbonization in a cost-effective manner. Like, that's the message thing, and what it's also doing is giving us the document we need to be able to qualify as a climate leader and be eligible for substantial grant funds. I feel like that's part of the letter, Julie. You know, that's a little more process-y, but that's, I think, it's like, why am I reading this thing? What is this thing? All right, Julie, you got your hands full on that? It is genuinely just to meet the climate leaders. We wouldn't be doing it otherwise. So, I don't think, I didn't put a vote on the agenda, so I don't think we can take it. But certainly, Julie, you can represent to the select board that the Energy Committee is fully on board with these documents. They've been discussed. We've given you our input. We're supportive. I just don't think we can vote. But I would say, I'm just going to get a sense of the committee. If people are supportive of these two things, would you just raise your hand? All right. So, the sense of the committee was that we are very supportive, Julie. We didn't take an official vote. But you can certainly represent that. Ellen, it was in the agenda, I think, the last bullet, it was upcoming select board presentation and vote. Their vote, not our vote.
Okay, I'm confused. I think we have to say that the committee would take a vote. I read that as, maybe I'm wrong, but I read that as upcoming select board presentation and select board vote. That was the intent of that bullet, right, Julie? You can do a vote, whether it's in the agenda or not. I mean, all somebody has to do is make a motion in a second. All right. Well, let's take a motion. I will entertain a motion about our support for these two documents. Somebody, I can't make it as the chair. Okay. I move that the Energy and Climate Committee supports the climate roadmap and the EV policy. Support the decarbonization roadmap and the ZEV policy. Thank you. Thank you. I need a second. Second. Any further discussion on this? I'll just do a roll call vote. Steve? Yes. That was a yes, right, Steve? Okay. Bill? Yes. Yes. Neil? I was muted. Yes. And associate member, you're not in voting, but I'll still get your vote, Clovis. And Tavia, maybe you don't know enough about it, but thumbs up. Okay. So the voting members, it is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 0. And Neil can record that. And you can certainly represent Julie this to the, they won't be surprised. I've spoken to most of them about it. Thank you. Great. All right.
At an Energize Wayland meeting, we discussed this. And I think I did see a letter that came from Ann Harris, our former co-chair, urging them to vote this way. You know, Michael Delman. So I think there will be members of the public who provide public comment on this. If you want to do that as an individual, not as a member of the committee, you can come to the select board meeting and be very brief, please. I think the key points are, we, these are good best practices. This makes us eligible for substantial grant funds, and this should not cost the town. This is a good strategic financial decision for the town. You know, zero energy vehicles will be done within our current budget. We're not required to buy vehicles that won't do the job or cost a lot more. And decarbonization roadmap planning is just good facilities planning. So if you know members of the select board and you want to reach out to your friends on the select board, feel free. Eligible for a substantial grant funding is kind of important. Is the lead, I think. They will focus on that. Actually, we've said that over and over, Bill. And interestingly, they focus more on, will these policies cost us more in the short run? Right. But it's the economics. In other words, money in rather than money out. Yep. Yep. Okay. Energize Whalen update, which I will do, but I would love, you know, Clovis can chime in here as well.
The, this is, we should put this on the agenda also, Julie and Olivia. This is not Energize Whalen. It's really the plug-in update. So remember, we're part of a six-town outreach campaign called Plugin Metro West. Did we lose? Oh, there we were, Julie. Dot org. And Mass Energize supports that, running monthly webinars on different technologies. The last one was on heat pump water, Peter. Some individuals from Whalen attended. And Energize Whalen will be following up with those individuals. In January, they've asked us to promote some resiliency checklists. So, Olivia, I don't know. It seems like maybe we could use the town newsletter to promote in January what Fabiani sent out about resiliency being prepared for the winter. You were on that email distribution, as was I, and Anne and Clovis, I think. So, hopefully, so have a, we should, I will, maybe, Olivia, you could send a note to Fabiani and make sure Julie's on these distributions, too. But that would be a good one for the town newsletter. Yeah. You with me? Yep. Okay. And I will make sure, in January, there's a webinar planned, and I really, because I've been out of town for two months, I don't remember what the topic is. Do you remember what it is, Olivia? What Fabiani's hosting? I believe, is that what you're talking about? I'm sorry. Yes. The January plug-in webinar being hosted by Mass Energize slash Fabiani. Do you remember the topic? I think it's solar. Home solar. I thought it was about, like, energy home assessments, actually, but I'm not sure. Okay. We're not sure, but there'll be another one in January, and then Olivia should use the town newsletter to do that Energize Whalen will promote it in the way we always do. So the other thing that came up in Energize Whalen and Clovis and Steve were on these calls, actually, it was a suggestion by Steve's wife, Lynn, to offer home composting bins, identify a vendor that has a pretty good price. We're going to either commit to ordering some in advance or just give people the link to do them individually, and we can centralize the delivery and distribution, which I think is what people are leaning towards a little bit more. But it'd be a chance for us over the winter. And Energize Whalen will discuss this at our next meeting before the holiday, but it seems like there was general support in the listserv, I felt like. So this would be a chance to just talk about composting and people can either do it in their backyard or sign up with Black Earth or take it to the town transfer station for Black Earth. We would promote it in the winter and deliver the bins kind of in the spring. And I think, I don't know if Julie's still, Julie, I know you're off camera, but Julie sort of said, I think, okay, with me, do other, and we, again, like Olivia, that'd be a great outreach thing for you to do with the COA group, with the newsletter. Kavya, that'd be a great thing to think about how to use the high school kids to get that word out. Any concerns or objections? So Steve and Clovis chime in here. You guys were on the meeting, too.
I think, is that you? You come in here for a second. Okay. Lynn just came down the stairs. That's what I'm asking. I think one of the things that came out of that discussion was there's some education involved because it's about the composting you proposed. Yeah. Do you want to come in?
You mentioned her, so she's here. Hi. Okay. Hey, Lynn, you're now joining the Energy and Climate Committee. I just gave them the thumb. We're doing the update from Energize Whalen. She said, it seemed like there was general support. We'll get the green light from Energize Whalen to do the ordering of compost, make it easy for people to order the compost bins and try to have centralized distribution. And we're just talking about, does it, we'd be promoting composting backyard with black earth or drop at the transfer station. And it's also a point to really talk about food waste and other waste, educational. So I think, is it your sense from the group that we'll likely go ahead with it? I didn't hear anybody having big objections, right, Lynn? I don't know. Because, but, I mean, I didn't have big objections, but I also didn't get a sense that people were thinking it's going to be necessarily successful either. So I don't know. I think there might have been some hesitation about pre-buying things because black earth does exist. And I think one of the things that came out of it was maybe we need some education because we do both. But we know that there are things we cannot do in our backyard that we can do with black earth. Yeah. So, um, you know, I think it has to be coupled with some, uh, information about why you would do this and what it can give you in addition to what black earth can give you. Yeah. So I think, I mean, I feel like we didn't work that through. It was just on emails and stuff. And, um, the other concern I have is that, you know, we need a place to put this palette of, um, and I didn't know if we worked that out. And I also feel like there was some concerns. I mean, I'm actually, I'm, we are going to go ahead with this group purchase for, um, a group that I belong to called the Middlesex three, um, um, consortium, which is a bunch of, um, companies along the route three, um, corridor, but UMass Lowell is going to take the lead and they obviously have the space and they have the, um, they have a big, um, big, um, push on, um, sustainability. They have a big sustainability committee. And then of course they have a huge population to depict, to encourage the purchase of the, um, of the barrels. So we actually, you know, I was going to see how that all went. Um, and then, and, and, and when I thought, um, Julie, are you on right now?
Oh, that's yeah. So we've, we've actually done this before we did, we've done this with compost bins before and rain barrels before and cat organized it. So I think there's hesitancy to pre-buy, but if, if we could identify a vendor and if people could buy, I think Julie, the question is, could we, we did this before and the pickup was, um, at the, um, public works building, the, the new one, uh, um, uh, with all the DPW trucks. That's what we did it for because I was part, I was, I was, I handed things out to people. Um, um, so I know we've done it. So it's a question whether the town would be willing to have something shipped there if people had prepaid it and we could then, you know, we could provide volunteers that would check people off and they could pick their thing up. Right. Yeah. We can definitely work internal to town. I also, um, did this push a couple of years ago in Weston and I made a bunch of educational materials on what you do in your backyard versus what you give to black earth. Oh. Um, so I have all that info that I can also give you. Great. Wow. Perfect. I didn't know that existed. Yeah. That helps a lot. Yeah. So what, Julie, what do you think? Are you supportive of this or you're, I mean, if, yeah, I think if we can, if we can do it in the spring, um, and have it be part of like an, you know, like earth week push or something like that, or maybe the pickup. Like, I think we would open, they open the store sometime in January. It closes sometime in mid March and the delivery is in April. I think that's how it works. So I think we would promote it in February and March to get people to sign up. Right. And it would be a quick, you know, it's a great chance for us. Energize Whalen has its newsletter lists of about 900 people, but you know, the COA newsletter is whatever, 1800 people. And we could do something through the all schools and Kavya, this would be a great one, um, for you to help with. We do have what, 13,000, um, people in town or something. Yeah. We have about 4,900 households, about 13, 14,000 people. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, we have a shot at this. I think, you know, they'd like us to take the 104, um, it's the smallest size, but I'm going to talk to them a little bit anyway, this week. Again, I have a meeting with them on Friday for this UMass Lowell version, and we're going to talk again about, cause they keep saying, don't worry about it. If you can't make it, we can work things out. It's not critical, but I do think let them run the store and not, and not look at it as a fundraiser, just look at it as an educational thing and promoting composting. Um, and yeah, so that would be my suggestion. I'm, I don't really want to make it a whole fundraiser. And I think if we just kind of don't get too crazy, Lynn, like we use our normal outreach channels, and then an article in the Wayland Post, Energize Wayland, these five other newsletters, the town stuff, and we make up, pick up easy. And it's just a chance to keep talking about sustainability with people. Yeah. Yeah. That's how I feel about it. Also, Olivia is doing an event on composting, um, for a, for a specific population as well. So we can tie all that in together. Um, that'll be at the council on aging and I think February or March. So, um, yeah, we should, we should just connect and, and make sure that we're coordinating on everything and, um, whatever you need to help with. I feel like then we need to probably have a meeting then with recycling connections and have. Yeah, I think Lynn, Lynn will be the point person. So, Lynn, why don't you file up with. Julie, should it be you and me? And then should anyone else want to join us? It could be you guys. Yeah. And Olivia should be there too. Okay. Yeah. I think. Olivia, I don't think we've met. Um, I, um, I, we definitely haven't, I'm Olivia, I'm the sustainability coordinator. Um, and I'm sorry, everyone. I forgot to mention that that was the, um, community education grant that the town just got. It's for, um, $1,850 and it's for South Asian population. Um, I'm hosting a family compost bin building and decorating night, um, very much in the beginning stages of that, but probably going to be around the springtime. So we definitely. Building compost. Um, yeah. Like with, you know, plastic Tupperwares and then putting in the dirt and then the food for like the worms that eat the food and you know, that kind of thing. All right. So this is. Like understanding how to do composting sort of in general. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We can talk more about it offline. Why don't you guys all talk about it? All right. Yeah. We'll connect later. We got the connection. But let's, let's try it. If you guys could keep, um, Kavya in the loop, cause I do feel like this is a good one that has a student piece and Clovis has had his hand up for quite some time. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. Got it. You're muted. I'll reach out to you, Julie, and we can take it from there. Okay. All right. Great. And do I have, um, Kavya, do I have your, are you related to the last person? Yeah. Yeah. She's the younger sister. I was going to say, I was thinking the same thing. Can you put your email? Well, I don't think the chat works, but in the chat, we don't have a chat. We don't have a chat. Sorry to interrupt. I have Kavya's school email. So if you just start a chain, I'll add Kavya in. Okay. Great. All right. Perfect. Super. All right. Clovis, back to you. Did you walk down? Yes. But I'm looking for my phone. See ya. Clovis. Not only did I join your committee, but I brought you a special guest. There you go. Clovis. Still Clovis. My only comment is Black Earth Education, because through email chain, I was not aware that it was available for free at the transportation. So for me, it's worthwhile to educate on that, to use it as much as possible for whoever is, I mean, using the transportation. It's available for everyone. Instead of dumping your bones or leftovers, leftover meats in your trash, it's a lot better to transport it to a transfer station. And I see something, it's a comment that you made. You could also buy the small kitchen trash cans just for that purpose. So I think it's maybe people sharing what they do specifically with Black Earth at the transfer station. If we know of anyone doing it, it could be interesting. You know, it's just making me think that maybe this is an interesting article for the Wayland Post as part of the outreach, Steve, which would be not just talking about the options, but highlighting people in Wayland who have made different choices about composting. So maybe Steve, you could, you're the comms guy, you could take a lead on thinking about that article for like February. I've also written a lot for the Wayland Post, so I'm pretty well connected. Good. Yeah. So June is great. But if you could do that, you know, we do what Clovis does. We do backyard composting, and we have a bin that we also take to the transfer station for our meat and bones and cheese. But if we could highlight people who have done three different things, great. Okay. Yeah, I do it all at my house too. So we have black earth, and I have a bin at home, and then I also garden a lot. So I'm happy to help however you'd like. This is a topic I know I can definitely support with. Okay. And that might be fun to make one of the profiles our new sustainability manager in what she's doing with composting. So I think that'd be great. So I think that is the Energize Wayland update. There's an event that we're promoting with Metro West Climate Solutions. Once I posted on the site, I really can't remember what it is. I'm sorry. It'll be in the next newsletter. It's like the 19th. I can't remember. You guys all get the Energize Wayland newsletter, so you'll hear about it. And that's kind of, I think, where we are at, right? Clovis, is there any? I mean, we're getting, continue to get heat pump coaching requests, less on the solar side, but we get a couple a month maybe. And, you know, coaching is still, you know, Julie, for us, a robust activity. You got a couple of solar coaches, a heap of coaches on this call. So that's it for me on Energize Wayland. Upcoming grants and potential projects. There were a couple of grant things that one I sent to you, Julie, and one Tom sent to you. So do you want to just take this one? Sure. I mean, I've been very heavily focused on the D-carb roadmap, and that's kind of been 100% of my time. But we're also, there is a grant. As soon as we get through Slackboard next week, we can talk more about what we want to do. But we're in budget season right now for the town. We have kind of several balls that could be chased if and when some decisions are made on what's going to be funded and what's not for the next fiscal year. I don't want to, like, promise that we can commit to anything. But, like, we have a few small projects that we could definitely potentially pursue with the MassCEC grant. There's, like, a schoolwork, a Green School Works grant, which may or may not apply to us. But, like, I have to look at the criteria a little bit. So maybe we could talk. It's a potential. Yeah. That was the one I flagged to you because it was for our schools. It was for, but maybe, you know, at the January meeting, you'll have a better update. Forget the deadline. I just don't, I hate it when we miss the deadline. Yeah, we have time for both. And we're in the middle, you know, because we're doing the DCARD world map, we're actively looking at, okay, what projects do we have over the next one to three years? Because some of these grants, those cycles take a long time between when, you know, getting the application together, actually, you know, applying, waiting for decision, and then being able to do implementation. So there's definitely certain projects that make more sense for this stuff. And some that make less sense. So we're just trying to be a little bit targeted with how we pursue this. And I will say, you know, based on the meeting that we had last month, we had Eversource come to town building and meet with Olivia and I. And we had a representative from three different parts of the Mass Save program, the municipal side, come and go through and finally answer the 3,000 questions I had about Mass Save as it applies to municipal incentives. And so I have a ton of information. So I'm thinking of that grant, Ellen, I'm also thinking of all the incentives that are available. And I'm also thinking about like all the projects that we have on the pitch for the next year. And we are getting a hand, you know, we're getting some pushback from the budget committee on what we can and cannot fund for the next year. So as you kind of get it, like we're, there's a lot being juggled right now. But yeah, absolutely. We will be pursuing grant. The only other one, Julie, the only other one, I just want to, and I know Tom sent one thing to you and you've, I know you got to focus on this climate leader thing, but you'll look at the one Tom said, the one that I've lost track of, we were denied for the first time ever when we applied for green communities this last time. We, we haven't hit the cap. We're, we're short of the cap. So I think we got one more application in us for green communities. And do you know when that is due?
I don't know when, I think it's going to be like April. So I just want to put that on your agenda. Yeah, that was, that's absolutely my back pocket. Okay. Because we have a lot of weatherization that we could do. And that's an easy green community grant. Yeah. The payback is the town building really needs weatherization. There's nothing in parts of that attic above the children's way, I think. So anyway, I mean, my, the window next to my desk has a breeze. It's, it's that, it's that leaky today, literally today we were putting weather stripping along the window because it's the whole building needs it. So, you know, is there, you know, Julie, just, I don't know. Yeah. We can talk about offline just for your institutional knowledge. We did this ESCO with 39 capital projects. The town building was excluded because at the time there was a thought about completely repurposing the town building for another use. And so it was excluded and we've paid the consequences of that for a while. Yeah. And we've been able to, as far as I know, we've done a lot of updates in the last year and a half since Mike took over as facilities director. We're busy in town building right now. And we'd absolutely have roof work that needs to be done, structural work that needs to be done and some insulation work that we can do as well. Um, but you know, how much do you invest in a, in a clunker? Um, and it is, it is a clunker. So, um, we are also looking at like for the three elementary schools, making sure the roofs will last the next 10 years. So whatever decision gets made on those roofs, on those buildings, um, we can at least get through the design and decision-making process, um, without needing to invest, you know, a million dollars in, in new roofs. Um, well, one of them is new. One, one is new ish. Um, and the other two are reaching end of life. Yeah. Um, so I just, you're, you're, you're, if you see grand opportunities, funnel them to Julie and Olivia and let's in January, maybe, um, Olivia's thinking about the, let's just look at that in January and get input from anybody here that might be productive. Okay. Next meeting. And just know, Ellen, just to close that out, literally everything that we do in facilities, we're looking at incentives and grants for anyway. So it is a, an absolutely, if we want to do a special project, then maybe that's more of the conversation because we're going to be pursuing this stuff anyway. It just does the common practice. Yep. So we have to. Yep. Um, we set the next meeting. So that's fantastic. We need to review and approve the November 5th meeting notes. Were those circulated? I have been away. So I'm out of the loop.
Those were the ones I think that I more or less wrote. And that actually, Olivia mostly wrote, turned out, but, um, uh, yeah, I think those were sent around. Were they sent around? I think so. Olivia, are you still there? Is not. Oh. Yeah. She dropped. I think she got booted. I think she did too. I'm looking now. Yeah. It was like almost immediate. Okay. Great. So as long as they were sent, I, um, would like to take a motion to approve the minutes. When someone make that motion, please. So moved. Neil, a second. Second. Steve, um, discussion on the minutes or comments.
Okay. I'll take a, I'll take a vote then. I'm going to abstain since I wasn't at the meeting. I really can't approve the minutes. So Tom. Aye. Uh, Neil. Aye. Bill. Aye. Steve, were at the meeting? No, you were not. I was not there. Okay. I'm not sure. I should have seconded, but I did. You can second it. And I think that's okay. Um, and Clovis non-voting. So that is one, two, three. So that's a three, zero, um, Neil. So I think they're approved. Three, zero, two. Three, zero, two. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. Do you want me to forward them to you so that you know what you. Sure. Why don't you send them around. It's fine. Yep. Okay. Okay. Um, generally, I think our meetings will go seven, seven, 30 to nine. I think that's usually what it takes for us. If people have ideas on speakers you want to have at, at, at a meeting in this coming year, like something we want to learn about, um, please suggest those things. Um, because I think this is a group that sort of likes to get into it, Julie. So if there's something that's like, oh, let's like, let's learn about that technology. Is that really ready? Maybe there's somebody good to, to talk about it. I don't know. So I don't have a specific thought. I just saying, let's be open to, to such a thing. Um, would be, um, would be great. All right. I need a motion to adjourn. That's top. That's bill's going to make that. I know. Sure. So moved. All right. Any objections to adjourning? Thank you very much.