October 20, 2026 – Energy and Climate Committee – Video & Transcript
October 20, 2026 - Energy and Climate Committee
So, this is Ellen Tohn, Chair of the Energy And Climate Committee, and pursuant to...
Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting of the Energy and Climate Committee will be conducted via remote access in accordance with applicable law. If the meeting has only remote access, no attendance by members of the public will be permitted. If the meeting has remote access, people can watch it remotely via the link on the wayland.ma.us website.
When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so via remote participation. Public comment is limited to two minutes. So I just want to open it up very quickly to public comment, and we might bump this public comment to when it's our, so is there someone who has public comment? I think, Jean, you reached out to me that you did want to have some public comment.
But I'm wondering, Jean, if I'm happy to give you two minutes just for general. And then you I know it relates to the update to the Climate Action Mobilization Plan. And then you're welcome to stay on and rejoin that discussion, which we're going to have at six o'clock.
Okay. If that's your preference, that's fine. I'm glad to do that. So at this moment, I will just mention one topic, and that is the upcoming housing production plan activity, which occurs every five years in this town.
And we have engaged a consultant to help the town with this process. And I'm speaking now because I sit on the housing partnership, though I'm not representing the group. I'm just speaking as myself.
I'm just trying to raise public awareness of this planning process. I think it's a very important opportunity for the entire town to communicate openly and clearly about concerns, desires, worries related to housing. And so I'm going to spend a fair amount of time trying to cast a very broad net.
And draw citizens into this discussion. So I'm visiting committees and just saying, if you haven't heard that this is coming, I'd like to make sure that you know. And that I think that doing a real thorough job at this point of, you know, the past committees have done very good work, I'd like to take a little broader view. And I'm hoping to draw people into focus groups and other forms of participation.
So that's all. And I'll come back at six for the other. Okay, that sounds great. Thank you very much, Gina. And I'm sure the committee would be interested or certainly members of the committee. So as you share information about that process, you can forward it to Liv and I and we can send it out to the committee and we can explore if there are other ways to do something more intentionally around that. Gina and I were on a joint call yesterday about ADUs. So we have housing on the brain, don't we, Jean?
Right. Okay. Any other public comment? Jean, if we get to the camp before 6, which I don't think is likely, I do have your, you texted me something, which I sent out to the committee, your thoughts about it in advance. Okay. Also text you to say we're running a little early, so happy to do that for you. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Okay, great. Thank you very much. Any other public comment?
Okay, with that, let me just note for the record in attendance, we have committee members Tom Sciacca, Bill Huss, Ellen Tohn, Steve Garone, associate member Paul Dale, and I don't know if John or Clovis has joined. Can you guys see that? Committee member, vice chair, Neil Gordon. Sorry, Neil. Okay, okay.
All right. So, Marianne, welcome to the committee meeting. You had reached out with Janot to say you would love to chat with the committee about our committee co-sponsoring an event you are holding around climate and human rights, diversity, equity and inclusion, which is the name of your committee. So I'll just hand it over to you.
Thank you so much. Jeannot and Lourdes Juarez is here also. Actually, our main focus was that, well, let me tell you a little about Human Rights Day. It's an event, a day that was designated back in 1948 after World War II, and it's a statement of 30 statements about human rights. And it's celebrated on December 10th of every year. And we read, what we have done the past three years is to read the statements in various languages and then have some sort of program that, you know. Reflective of how we work on human rights, both trying to be a local focus, but willing to talk about the greater world. And Janot has done a lot of international work and had an interesting opportunity to look at a climate change plan for another country in the world. And I'll let her say that if she's allowed to say that. But anyhow, that made me think, because I didn't have a program yet, that it would be really great to do something about climate change and how that's related to human rights. And so we reached out to you because you are our local climate change group and to think about how we might be able to collaborate on a 15 to 20 minute. Presentation or display. And anyhow, actually, Jono, do you want to take it off from here? And maybe you had, you did have some more specific things, but so that's kind of what we've done. Let me just at least say that we usually have 40 to 50 people at this event. Last year we had at the COA and it's always a very meaningful event and touching. And we get, you know, lots of different languages to express, you know. to make these statements in different languages. So as you know, I'll let you take it off from here. Thanks, Marianne, for that great overview of Human Rights Day and how we've been celebrating here in Wayland. And, I mean, it's great that we've been attracting a lot of people who, whatever their different backgrounds, like to read through the statement, participate in reading the statement. And because there are 30 elements of the, you know, Human Rights Declaration, it's a nice way for... Townspeople to participate in the event. And this year, we wanted to focus on climate as a human right. There are some, you know, kind of landmark decisions in the international law arena that are elevating the understanding of climate as a human right. I mean, under the United Nations, the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment encompasses climate. And that's, you know, it's I think it's. It's both inspiring and important for people to understand that climate is really a human right, but also that the effects of climate change are quite disproportionate and that the most vulnerable do suffer impacts first and have less capacity to adapt. And rather than talking about You know, the disparities so much. We would like to keep the focus kind of local and, you know, and to inspire people, you know, about what we are doing and what we can do and how we can participate as Waylanders. So that's why we reached out to you, to the Energy and Climate Committee, because we'd really like to highlight the camp, the Climate Action Mobilization Plan. We're really looking for your joining us. We're willing to carry the organizing burden as much. As you like, or to share, you know, the planning of the program as much as you would like. I know that you have lots of fun stuff. You've got, you know, like interactive games and things that we could bring out. We do, you know, we do look at this, I think, Marianne, it's going to be a Thursday night this year, December? Thursday night, yep, 7 to 8.30. Right, so it's a fairly short. Early evening program. We like to start being on time, let people go home for the rest of their evening. I just wanted to invite the Energy Climate Committee to, you know, you may need to vote, you know, to co-sponsor this year's event with us with a focus on climate as a human right. And if you'd like to share any particular aspects or challenges with the Climate Action Mobilization Plan, We would love to make that the program if you wanted to bring some of the games. Some people do bring their children. So it can be a focus on all ages. And I guess that's enough about it. Let me ask for your ideas. Hopefully enthusiastic. So let me try and take, we have a crazy agenda tonight to know. So my, I'm happy to hear what people thought. I think it'd be great if we co-sponsored this. So I think I would like to propose a vote. I think I would like to propose that we maybe identify a couple of people who would work with the Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Committee on the content of the program because we don't have time to sort that out here. I think it's also an opportunity for us to say to people, we are rewriting our camp and it's a good chance for us to seek some input so we could use it as another form for that. And Paul, I also thought the presentation Paul did at our Have a Slice, Get Energy Advice thing about actually what's making energy expensive now and what you can do about it was a great 10-minute presentation. So I was thinking, you know, we might. Kind of reuse that because we worked hard on it. It was great so that we could do something where it's like, here, five great things we've done in Wayland. We're doing an update of a plan. We'd love your input on this. Well, maybe five great things we've done. Here are things that you can do now. And then the third part would be, we'd love to input on the plant. So that was my thinking, but maybe we could just quickly go around, see, why don't people raise their hand if they, let me actually, I can call him Paul since I just sort of volunteered him to see and then go around what other people think and then see if we can finish this up in five minutes and then vote. Well, thank you, Ellen. Ellen and I have corresponded on this before the meeting, and I did say that I would be more than happy to participate in this particular exercise. So she's not giving me away in an unwarranted fashion. So I think that in the interest of time... Ellen, if you want to call, I'm only an associate member, so I don't actually get to vote on the Energy Committee, but if you want to call a vote, or maybe I can't even make a motion, I guess, but somebody should make a motion to co-sponsor the December 10th Human Rights Event in Wayland, Massachusetts, or however they want to phrase it, and then we can appoint. Paul Dale, as the Energy Committee liaison to the Human Rights, the DEI Committee, could work out the program. Does someone want to, any other comments before we make that motion? Because we can make the motion and then discuss it. Could someone make that motion? Neil, could you make that motion? Yeah, I'm happy to make the motion that we co-sponsor the event and Paul take responsibility for coordinating with the committee. And I point out that December 10th is also my birthday. So I think if you could work that in there, Paul, that would be really helpful as well. Well, actually, I can one-up you on that, Neil. Today, October 20th, is my birthday. Okay. Wow. So consider this a present. There you go. I need a second on the motion. Would someone second it who's a member, please? Second. Thank you, Steve. Further discussion from people on this? I mean, just what does it mean to co-sponsor? Is it just helping out with the program? I think our name would be listed when they promote it. And then we can use our outreach channels to help promote it. I would imagine like Olivia could work with getting things in the newsletter. And then we could ask Energize Wayland to put it in their newsletter, which I'm sure would not be a problem. That goes to about 900 people in town. And, you know, we can coordinate on social media. Outreach, hopefully get it in the all schools newsletter. You know, there's a bunch of outreach channels that we could work on, and I'm happy to work with Paul on that. All right. Any other comment? Or, Olivia, you look like you want to say something. I was going to say happy birthday, Paul, and happy to help how I can with coordinating the event. And no further discussion? Okay, I'm going to take a vote. I can actually see your hands. So all those in favor, raise your hands. So I see yeas, Olivia, for me, Steve Garone, Neil Gordon, and Tom Sciacca, and Bill Huss. Those are our voting members. All right. Shockingly, we're going to stay on time here within one minute. So, Genoa, Marianne, you can reach out to me and Paul Dale, and we'll try to coordinate that. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Thank you so much. Looking forward. And happy birthday. And Paul, Paul can probably, we'll send you Paul's presentation, which was great. So it was terrific. I'd like to see that as well, actually. All right. Send that to me too. Paul can send it around to the whole committee. And then Olivia. Maybe you can forward to these other folks because you have their emails, Olivia. Yeah, definitely. Sounds good. All right. So, Olivia, I will send to you and the ECC members, and then I'll count on you to distribute it outside of the ECC. All right. Yes, sir. Got it. Very good. Great. All right. So now we're going to turn to a... So I don't know if we actually... Co-noticed this meeting, Rob. You know, Olivia, you and Rob co-noticed it, but we did invite the planning board to join us now for a presentation from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the work they are doing on developing a solar bylaw. And just to explain to us, we were all kind of involved in this a little last fall. This is a new effort, and I appreciate the planning board and Rob sort of, we had asked if you guys could come help us understand what we are doing so we can figure out how we can be most helpful in the process. So I'll hand it over and note that John Harper, who was on here a second ago, has he flipped off? Does anyone see John? He was here. I know he's on a train going to New York, so Amtrak has. Funny coverage. But John is the solar expert on our committee, so we would probably love to have John. Be involved in the process and taking a look. There he is. There he is. So, John, I just said you're the solar expert on our committee and that for things like solar bylaw, John is probably best suited to be most helpful in the process. All right. So, I hand it over to you guys. May I just say something? Right now, we have two members of the planning board here. There's another one who may be joining us. When that person joins us, I need to convene a meeting. Perfect. You let me know. Just raise your hand, Annette, make a big sign, whatever works. Okay? Yep. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. All right. Over to, I don't know who is, is it Josh? Who's doing it from MAPC? I'll take it away from you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Olivia, do we have rights to share our screen? We do have a couple of slides. Also, happy birthday, Paul. Okay. You should be able to now. Let's see.
Don't see it. I promoted you to host. You might have to accept it. Do you want to try making Ilana the host, too? Looks like it's not working for me. Thank you. Okay, I just did that. Ilana, did that come through at your end? Can you try and share? Yes, I am working on that shared right now. She's listed on my participant. They're both listed on my participants list as co-host. It has to be at my end. Sorry about that. I don't see the function. Got it. Perfect. Okay, good. Great. Go for it. Tweet. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having us. We're here from MEPC, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the RPA for our region, and here to share some updates on the Clean Energy Infrastructure Zoning Bylaw. Give me one second. Looks like my Zoom is not cooperating. Okay. And just a quick introduction to ourselves. I'm Sumik Shah. I'm a Clean Energy and Climate Planner at MEPC. I will let Alana say hi, too. Hi, everyone. My name is Alana Zabar. I am a Regional Housing and Land Use Planner at NUPC. Thank you. We also have Jeremy Koo usually helping Welland, not here today, and we're also joined by two of our colleagues, Josh and Emma, in the call. We have a brief presentation for you here today. I'll start with some background on the state regulations that are kind of driving this work, and then Alana will walk through our approach to actually drafting and developing the bylaw. And we'll have time for questions at the end, but feel free to jump in or use the, yeah, jump in if something isn't clear along the way. Next slide, please. Next one, too. Thanks. So in November 2024, Governor Healy signed an act called the An Act Promoting a Clean Energy Grid, Advancing Equity and Protecting Great Bears, which is also known as the 2024 Climate Act. One of the major components of this act was reforming the clean energy infrastructure projects, how clean energy infrastructure projects are sited and permitted in our state. Historically, permitting processes have varied significantly across Municipalities with different applications requirements, review procedures and timelines. So this is also identified as a barrier for development of clean air infrastructure. And so the Climate Act really addressed these challenges by establishing requirements for municipalities to Offer consolidated local permitting for smaller clean energy infrastructure projects. These include solar PV, battery energy storage systems, BESS, and some electric distribution infrastructure. And DOER pursuant to that law issued regulations for the optional consolidated local permitting process that all municipalities need to offer this fall. Next slide, please. So under this law, the clean energy infrastructure projects are classified either into small and large infrastructure facilities. As you can see on the screen, for generation solar projects. Less than 25 megawatts are considered small, which is virtually all or not most of the solar in our state. And for storage, that's less than 100 megawatt hours. And the distinction here is that for permitting authority, municipality holds that authority for small clean energy infrastructure facilities and the larger one go to the state's energy facility siting board. Next slide, please. So this is an overview of the consolidated permitting process. MEPC is working with Robert separately on establishing and kind of helping set up this process for Wayland. Just wanted to make a note that this is the required optional process the municipality needs to set up, but the BESS and storage bylaw are optional. However, this presents an opportunity for municipalities to kind of review their existing zoning and establish. Clearer standards for development of small clean energy infrastructure in the municipality. Through this work also, we've heard increasing interest in amending bylaws or thinking about solar and BESS. So municipalities are proactively being clear about establishing expectations for future developments or proposals that come through. Next slide, please. MEPC, with other RPAs, has received funding to provide technical assistance to municipalities to comply to the regulations and also help amend zoning bylaws and draft these zoning bylaws to prepare municipalities to do just that. Nearly all municipalities in MEPC's region right now lack zoning for battery energy storage. We're actually working with more than 20 municipalities interviewing the solar PV zoning and developing best zoning, so Willen is one of them. I will pass it over to Lana with that context on how we're actually working with Wayland. Thank you for that. So we're going to review sort of our approach to zoning for Wayland. And then at the end, we'll take any questions that you all have. It's worth noting that we are just starting off this process with Wayland. And so we are not coming to you today with a completed zoning bylaw to show you what we have already written. We want to sort of explain what the project is that we're working on, give you all a heads up about what is to come later, just so you all know. So I want to start with why zoning. As was mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, the consolidated permitting process is a requirement that every municipality must take and actually had to comply with by October 1st. So we have passed that deadline and Wayland is in good shape, but... When it comes to zoning, that is not required. We are encouraging it, though. The reason is because zoning allows you to regulate what development might look like if a developer came and said, I want to put solar in your community or I want to put a battery energy storage project in your community. And so when you have the zoning in your bylaw, We are able to regulate things like what landscaping might look like, what fencing and screening might look like. It allows you to prepare your community for a development should it come. Again, by adopting the zoning, it does not mean that you are going to automatically get a bunch of development proposals. It just means that you're prepared if you do. The state has developed model bylaws for both solar and bass. Best being the battery energy storage. And these allow for you to increase the requirements when the lots are abutting residential properties. They allow for you to make reasonable standards for environmental resources for any type of development. What the zoning does not allow you to do is ban any sort of solar or BESS infrastructure in your community. You do have to allow it. It also does not allow you to write your zoning bylaw so strict that even though it's technically allowed, it would be really difficult to produce solar or bass in your community. So we want to make sure that we're very careful with how we go about drafting this to fit within the context of the Wayland community, but also make sure that you're not at risk legally for being challenged at the state level. So how are we going to do that? So the first step, as I mentioned, is that the state has created model bylaws for solar and vests. These are going to be sort of our bread and butter. They're going to be the foundation for what we build for Wayland. But that doesn't mean that what the state has drafted perfectly fits your community. And so we're going to start looking at the guidelines that you had drafted last year and take those into consideration, as well as the existing zoning in your community. And so wanting to make sure that the language and where there is flexibility fits your community and your development patterns. And that's how we're going to create a clean energy infrastructure bylaw for Wayland. Now, how are we going to make this easy for you all? Because we know that adopting new zoning is not like, it's much easier said than done, right? And so we want to... Elena, sorry to jump in. I think John has his hand up. Oh, yes. Sorry about that. Hi, Alana. Thank you. And my apologies, I'm on an Amtrak train in New York City. Wi-Fi is fluky. So you may have covered this. About 10 years ago, there was a wave of towns that passed solar zoning bylaws that established it as a by-right ability for residential, particularly rooftop-type stuff. And the most recent legislation really wasn't focused on the residential so much as on the stuff on the ground and commercial, et cetera. But would you be layering into... These draft guidelines, that earlier notion that under state law, that it is a by right for residential. You mean residential rooftop, correct, John? Residential rooftop in particular, yeah. Yes, so we will be taking, basically the state model builds off the previous model for residential rooftop, so it does combine rooftop and ground-mounted solar. So both will be included in what we draft for Wayland.
Not sure that answered the question. I think the question was, and it may be that you're still thinking about this, that is that by right, or is there still a new, or would we be creating a new permitting process for people putting rooftop systems on their homes? John, we can't, you got to turn your camera off. John, turn your camera off. Let's assume we ask whether it's by right and answer that question and move on. Yep. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. I wanted to wait till the audio was stopped because I know it can be hard to layer audio. So as we move through this, we are going to follow the state model, which right now does include by right in residential for building rooftop solar. Great, thank you. If no further questions, I'm going to head back to the presentation, but this is actually one of our second to last slides, so then we can open it up for more conversation questions there. So talking about how MAPC is going to make this process easier for Wayland. What we're going to do right now, the state model exists as two separate bylaws, both a solar PV bylaw and a best bylaw. We're going to consolidate this into a clean energy infrastructure bylaw. There is precedent for this across the state. Many communities are thinking about doing this. This makes it a lot easier when you have to go to town meeting rather than standing up and trying to get multiple things approved. You're able to do it in one go. It also lets people understand what the difference is. You're able to have that conversation a little bit easier. What we're going to do is embed it into your existing zoning rather than creating an overlay district. This will make it, again, easier for folks to think about where solar could be or where battery energy storage could be. Existing zoning bylaw. That way we know it's something that, one, your community is going to be okay with, and two, the state is going to approve. And then, you know, the most beneficial way we can make this easy is that we're going to take the first crack at this. We're going to come up with a draft and bring that to you all so that we can say, like, here's what we think makes sense, and that's when we're going to have a conversation about the specifics.
Yeah. So quickly, before we go to questions, just a note on the timeline. Ellen, actually, do you want to share your thoughts? That was actually my question, which is, are you trying to do this for the town warrant for Springtown meetings? I didn't see a slide on timelines. Is it the next slide? Or did you move? You went to questions. Oh, that's good. Okay. Sweet. Yes, that is correct. We're aiming for the May to vote on it in the May down meeting. As you just heard, we've started or beginning to start. We've met with Olivia and Robert on kind of defining the scope of the technical assistance we're providing. We hope to share a draft of the consolidated bylaw with the town sometime in November and then to get ready for the public hearing. Anticipated January of next year. And then submit the warrant article with the feedback incorporated and then be ready for town meeting. And in between these, we'll coordinate with Robert and Olivia on figuring out input touch points and get the feedback from you and also from planning board. Yeah. But thank you. Definitely open for questions. I think I saw Tom first, then Annette. Okay, so... Comments more than questions. Number one, I'm really happy to see that you've included battery storage in your planning because I'm an electrical engineer and I've been working on alternative energy stuff for over 35 years. And when I look at our opportunities in New England, given both our climate and the I have heard some comments from members of the public, non-technical people who are paranoid about Batteries. And You know, they're worried about an electric car bursting into flames in their garages. And, of course, I ask them when the last time they heard of that actually happening occurred. And, again, I've been in the energy business a long time. I know 300 houses a year blow up from natural gas explosions in the U.S., but somehow that doesn't become a reason to not install more. More gas. But that kind of bias exists. So do you have plans to deal with that? Thank you for that comment and question and for believing in the potential of BESS. We're really excited about that. But yes, actually, we DOER, we recently, MEBC got funding from DOER's Advancing Massachusetts Power Grant to kind of come up with safety and training surrounding BESS for our municipalities. So we just got the funding. We're getting started to kind of prepare those training for municipal staff, fire safety and departments and staff and for general public as well. Other consultants, but mostly putting together a training program. And Emma, if there's anything else I'm missing on that. But definitely a concern that we've heard all across the board. How do I speak? Can I speak? Yeah, I just... Okay. The timeline. We're required to submit our... Town meeting articles, I believe, by January the 15th. So the hearing would have to be in advance of that. And we'd need time to incorporate any public comments that come from people. So I'm thinking that if it's possible to do the public hearing earlier and or no later than the first week in January. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that note. I would just second that also. We've all lived through the tyranny of the warrant schedule in Wayland, so let's not bump up right against it. That'll cause way too much. I did, Warren, when I talked to MAPC last week, we discussed about the timelines are really tight, and so we would need to have a public hearing, like you said, in January to be ready. So the plan would be to have a draft before that. For a bit to look at before we finalize, something to be posted. So that is, we have a tight deadline, but I'm hoping that MBPC can put together stuff that they have from the past that they can put together for Wayland. That makes more sense. In January, we have, I'm looking at the schedule for planning board. We have January 6th as a meeting. So that could be a good meeting for the public hearing potentially. So we can try to shoot for January 6th. That deadline works for us. That means only nine days to deal with public comment and have a board meeting and revise anything. That's really tight. I'm going to second Annette's comment on this. If you can find a way to have a public hearing in December, I know the holidays are difficult, but if you get a lot of public comment, I'm hoping that for the Energy Committee, y'all, that you'll come to us before, you know, we'll have an opportunity to provide any input before the public meeting for public comment so that you're not getting last-minute stuff from us that would be problematic. So if we could build in something in early draft, and again, John is probably our most expert person on this, Paul also a little bit, we'd appreciate the opportunity to provide some input earlier. I'm with Annette on this. That's tight, Robert. You know, it's really, it doesn't give you much breathing room. Yeah, I mean, I can't change the holidays, unfortunately. Would you guys be ready if you had something in November? Could you do a public hearing in mid-December? Before the whole week, before the holidays? The meeting in December 2nd and December 16th of the meetings. We can always redo the meeting schedule, too, if we had to. You could make a special meeting that's a public hearing, right? And that doesn't have to be a planning board meeting. We could also do December 30th, which is a Tuesday. I think December 31st is, I think, New Year's Eve is on Monday. So we'll figure out from there, which will be as fast blows open. Thank you. Paul?
Yes, thank you for this information. I really wasn't aware of this. I'm pleased to see this happen. My question is, as you, I'm sure, are aware, the current conference committee reconciling the House and Senate energy affordability bills has in it a whole set of provisions that relate to automatic permitting of solar, interconnection rights, all sorts of things. Are those completely... Separate from this zoning considerations? Or if there was an energy affordability bill by the deadline, January 5th, do you see any possibility of needing further revisions as a result of that? Right now, we've been operating on the assumption that they are separate, but I can follow up and check. Emma, do you have more insights or thoughts on this? No, I think that's right. I would think they would be separate because you're really only concerned about placement, right? Yes. Yeah. Any other questions or comments from the committee, planning board members, members of the public, anybody else? No, this has been helpful. I thank you for coming to give an overview. I know that we weren't going to present a whole big discussion about what we want to kick off. We need to start somewhere to kick off the process for this. And if there's any comments that you have from the ECC side, feel free to reach out to me. And I am also the local. Government representative for solar projects. So any kind of big solar projects would go through my office and then go from there. Yeah, I think we'd be ready to the MAPC getting into the planning board to review things. If you give us like a week to review something, we don't need a meeting. We can have individuals review it and forward comments. We have a couple of more solar experts on the permitting side who have... Been on the development side of things and on the financing side, so I think we want to make sure we kind of think about the use case and how things work. The town's protective of its resources and that certainly for us, the committee is encouraging more solar. Given the price of land in Wayland, I don't anticipate a lot of big solar development coming our way. That said, I will say Sudbury, we were in touch with the Sudbury Sustainability Manager the other day. I know they're drafting their own bylaw. I told them you guys are helping us. Eric Sims is the sustainability manager, but he actually lives in Wayland. So I told them that he could reach out to you guys. I know they're drafting theirs and they're in the part where they're going to all their committees. They actually have language already. So I don't know. You guys might want to touch base with them. Thank you for spreading the word. I've been trying really hard to get as many institalities. Yeah, no problem. Okay, any further comments or questions? I appreciate Robert and Olivia trying to coordinate this. Then we sort of, as long as we can be apprised of the schedule and what you're doing and have opportunities to provide input, we'd love to do that and we'll be as timely as possible and certainly would suggest if you can hit like a mid-December public meeting, that would be. The best, because there's a 10-day period where you'll be blacked out for holidays, and then, as Annette says, you're getting too close. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you. And you're welcome to stay, unless the rest of our meeting, but I suspect you have better things to do. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next. This is our day of briefing of all kinds of things that are going on in town. Next, we're going to hear from Fire Chief Neil McPherson on the status of drafting the hazard mitigation plan for Wayland. And I was at the meeting in town, Neil, where you guys presented with your consultants what they were doing and asked for input. Olivia was there for part of that time. I know Jeanneau was there because she gave public comment right after me. The reason I thought it'd be good for them to come is we're revising our camp. And part of the camp had some sections around resiliency and preparedness. And I really would prefer that Wayland don't end up with two plans that are kind of fighting each other. We should figure out what belongs in their plan, what's in our plan, and we can have input there. Neil, to turn it over to you, I mean, for, I think we've given you half an hour to kind of talk about where you are in the process and how people can engage. Tom, this directly impacts some of the sections that you had written, obviously, in our earlier version. If we could, in my own view, if we could move some of those out of ours and move it into this other one, then they all rest in the right place and we can reference it in our plan, but not have duplicative language. But that's one. Woman's fault. Over to you, Neil. Okay. So can you hear me okay? Fantastic. All right. Awesome. So I want to thank people who attended the meeting and so far who have provided feedback. All right. As you know, like one of the primary drivers of the hazard mitigation plan is our ability to get grants. And mitigation grants. And that's part of the Disaster Mitigation Act, right? And then the Hazard Mitigation Plan is doing three things. It's identifying natural hazards, accessing our vulnerability, and outlining mitigation actions to reduce risk. So I don't know if people are aware, but the draft of this plan is available on the town website. All right. It's available under News and Announcements. Now, it is 300 pages. So I want to forewarn you, there is a lot of paper associated with it. And that's why we did not print off a lot of copies so that people could look at that. There is a review period right now. So this is a draft. And the review period is from October 13th through October 27th. So if you're feeling that you have extra time and you'd like to go through all 300 and something pages, it is a lot of information. But I just want to, again, emphasize that if you have feedback for the plan, you have until October 27th to provide us with that feedback, all right? There is a form that you can fill out if you'd like relative to the feedback that just helps us understand what part of the plan. So if you can reference, for example, pages or specific elements that you think should be updated versus general comments, that would be very helpful. And you're supposed to send that back to me, firechief at wayland.ma.us. When the review period ends, we're going to make one quick question. I think, Olivia, what would be helpful for the committee if you and Neil, as a follow-up to this meeting, send a link to the plan, a link to the forms, just to make it easy for committee members to provide input. That would be super helpful. Yep, I can do that. No problem. Great. Thank you. So when the review period ends, what we're going to end up doing is we're going to go ahead and we are going to take all of the comments and we're going to look at the comments and the working group is going to look at the plan and see where those comments would fit and or where appropriate changes could or should be made, right? And after that final review is done with feedback, We are going to send a draft to MEMA and then it goes to FEMA for a review. All right. After MEMA and FEMA do their review, they send it back to us for comments. And then the town has to go ahead at a select board meeting and adopt this plan. So high level the mechanics of what we're doing. The important part is there is a draft plan. It's available for review. We have a window from October 13th through October 27th to get feedback to us in writing relative to your comments. Now, I don't know if anybody has actually taken the time to review this plan. I don't know if people have. I know there's a lot of information. So you can see that there is different components of information about the town. It starts talking about the natural hazards we have. It talks about the vulnerabilities and outlines some of the mitigation actions to reduce risks. So in terms of coordination, this is a high-level plan. I was at the select board meeting last night. They asked, does this plan have specific workflows or guidance as to how we're going to respond? And the answer is no. This is supposed to identify the natural hazards and where we have the greatest vulnerabilities. Characterize some broad actions that we can take to mitigate that risk. And the really important part is this opens the door for federal and state funding, as I mentioned earlier. If we don't have this plan and this plan is not in place, then we are ineligible as part of the Disaster Mitigation Act to seek funds to solve some of those natural hazards and to reduce that risk. In the plan, there's a lot of different... Hazards and vulnerabilities. And I think the hard part has been trying to quantify what the hazards and vulnerabilities would be and then rank those vulnerabilities and then come up with some meaningful steps, although they are broad steps, to address them. So if people have looked at the plan, you can see that, you know, they've highlighted some of the hazards. A lot of them are water-related. If you ask me as the Emergency Management Director, what I think some of the biggest hazards that we face, a lot of them are climate and water-related, as we've seen, and storm-related, although there is a lot of different hazards that we face. So you'll see a lot of the, shall we say, The hazards profiled were flood, flood for flood, for flood precipitation and hurricanes. So I'm going to stop there for a second and ask if people have questions relative to what I've said so far, because I know I threw a whole bunch of information at you. Comment, I guess. I've skimmed the plan so far. As you know, Neil, I was out of the country when that hearing happened. But when I got back, I did. Yes, I found it on the town website and I skimmed it. I count over 500 pages in my online copy. A lot of it seems to be boilerplate almost. Talks over and over about every conceivable possible or incredibly unlikely hazards like earthquake. You know, we don't get earthquakes in this or any significant one anyway. But the biggest one we all know is flooding. I don't know if you're aware, but the CONCOM is having a hearing right now on the proposed rail trail over the river. And I am trying to get involved in that to try to do some flood mitigation as a part of that. of that plan. I didn't see anything in the draft explicitly relating to the river obstructions that are at issue. I think that's, and as much as, again, we all agree that flooding is the primary risk in Wayland, seems like that's a significant issue. Also, I found it weird that it talked a lot about what's happened in the last 10 years. Yet it also references, you know, 100-year and 500-year flood risks. So that didn't seem to me to make a lot of sense. Who cares what happened in the last 10 years? It's what could happen, what's a significant risk of happening, you know, in the next 10 years. And that involves what's happened in the last 100 years. So, comments. Anyway, yeah, it's a lot of stuff. I'm going to hopefully make some comments before the deadline. And you can see, Tom, there was a lot of information about the dams, right, and obviously the other feeds and rivers that come into Wayland. And as we probably both agree, well, there is obstacles in the rivers that Wayland is very much impacted. By the rivers upstream, downstream, and how they come in through Wayland. So there was a lot of information about the various things, which I think is, from my opinion, very relevant to the conversation about controlling the rivers and the flows. So while I appreciate some was boilerplate, to me, when we look at waters. And especially the Sudbury River and some of the rivers we have in these waterways, I thought that was very valuable information. And I'm very pleased with Snakebrook Dam in the sense that we're now going to solve what I consider to be one of the biggest hazards that we had before, which was Snakebrook Dam, which was overtopped once before by a couple inches in one of the storms. And now we're going to have a mechanism, right, to go ahead and better control water levels there. And I hope that as we look at these things and these challenges. That this can be used to help us solve some of those other problems and then seek federal funding to help us pay for those additional changes. And that's really, to me, this is the pipeline to help us identify and open up the doorway for funding to solve some of the other obstacles and things that we are facing relative to the water and the rivers. By the way, I don't know if everybody's aware of this, but historically, for the last 320-something years, one of the major contributors to our flooding risks in Wayland has been the Bilrica Dam. And it's looking extremely likely that that will come down next year. Had to involve some Middlesex Superior Court legal threats against the Billerica Historic District Commission. But it really looks like that's going to happen. So that is one of the two major human contributors to flooding in the river, along with all the obstructions being here. And as you know, that the plan also called out when it comes to new growth. And exposures in floodplain areas. Yes. That the town has done a good job in the flood, national flood program has helped us in terms of avoiding additional exposure in some of these susceptible areas. I think that was called out. I don't recall what page it was, but that was called out. And I think that's a very important point that is the town looks at this. OK, we have a little bit of a challenge, but we don't want to complicate it and worsen the challenge that we face today. Yeah, the concom has been doing a great job for over 50 years. Yeah. All right, Tom, I'm hoping you'll use their form because Neil can take these comments, but my guess is they're all going to a consultant. And when they go through the form process, it's more likely they're going to get dealt with. But that said, Paul? Yes, just a couple of procedural questions. Is there a particular time frame by which we have to have something in front of FEMA? Is there something driving the schedule here? So there is. So this plan is supposed to be updated every five years. So we're coming up on the expiration of the five years for the plan. We have notified FEMA and MIMA that we're working on this plan. So there's a little bit of a grace period. But if we don't have a plan completed, then we are technically ineligible. To get federal grants. And we recently got grant funding for the Snakebrook Dam. I believe that was $1.8 million. So in the future, if we had a project and we don't have our plan updated, you know, that would be a problem for us. Our goal is to make sure we get this plan completed as close to five years so that we can continue requesting grants in the next cycle of FEMA and MEMA. When is the official five-year mark? Do you know? I don't off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Are there model plans from other towns that have proved to be very successful in getting grant money or ones that have been unsuccessful in terms of do you have any sort of rubrics to go by in terms of what to include and what to leave out that is more or less likely to make it funding favorable? So one of the things that we've done is we've used a consultant to help us with this plan. Because as you can imagine, this is a tremendous amount of work on top of already busy work schedules. And the firm that we picked has done many plans for many other communities. So as part of the selection process, we looked at a bunch of the plans they did and the number of times things got kicked back by MIMA and FEMA because they understand the format. And that's one of the reasons that we picked the firm that we did because of their understanding of what is required. And then the second part is they understand that they help us take the information that we have and fit it into that format. And I think part of the practice becomes writing it in a fashion where it covers potential areas where you're going to seek funding in the future. I just used the example last time we mentioned Snakebroke Dam. In this plan, there's a lot of mention about waterways. So as it was just brought up before, if we have concerns in waterways, this is identifying you as a mitigation plan. If we want to go for the flood grant, we can do so because a lot of that is identified. Can Neil freeze for you guys? Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm just curious about that. I'm not familiar with this topic. Hello? Hello? Ellen, we can hear you. Maybe it's on your end, but I can hear Neil. Okay. Do you want to join, leave and come back? Nope, I just turned my camera off. Oh, okay, perfect. All right. Sorry, guys, thank you. No other questions that you might have? Yeah, I have one. When I listened to the presentation, you know, there were two big issues, flooding and extreme heat were kind of the two big ones that came up. And so I think in terms of intersectionality with the Energy and Climate Committee. The two things I would like to see maybe be in there because there would be if there. You're looking for FEMA money. We're looking for anybody's money, right, at this committee. And we've been successful. But the two things I've thought about is, as you know, we have solar at the middle school, and it is our shelter. And we have it wired, Neil, that when the power goes down, the solar can power certain circuits at the middle school, but we have no battery. And we've done a study to size a battery there. We have a plan. So if this plan could note that That we have solar and that if we could get a battery that would provide that would make that solar backup at the middle school more reliable and more available. This has been a long term plan from the committee. I'll say my second one and then John's back on the train. He can add to this. And the second point is around extreme heat. Not all of our schools have air conditioning. We are in the process of trying to get heat pumps in all our schools to get off gas and use more electricity. With heat pumps comes AC. But that is, when we think about extreme heat, There are not that many things, you know, the town's going to do for everybody's houses, but we, sorry, we could do something for our schools. So to the extent the plan could note that situation and note that the town would be, that this would be part of our plan to provide cooling in our educational settings. Those were the two that jumped out at me. Great, great points. Okay, so I'll do the form too, but since I'm talking to you. No, that's very true. Sorry, if I could just jump in quick. All the schools do have cooling. It's just, it's not very functional, but all of the schools do, like I are ducted and do have cooling. It's just very dated. So maybe, you know, noting that it's there, but it's not functional is important, just so you know. Thank you, Olivia. So we could say that we need to improve the cooling in our schools, which are not currently meeting heating degree day loads is the way I would frame it. You know, we're having more, I mean, cooling degree days, we're having more days that require cooling. So if you want to, you know, we're just the systems are not keeping up with the demand that we have. So, Olivia, is it fair to say, I mean, is that accurate if I put down also non-functioning or non-functional as well? Because I think that's a pretty aggressive term that, you know, highlights a dire... And that is a little bit different than like the cooling degree and unable to keep up for cooling degrees because do the systems just barely work or is it just at high heat days that we're struggling? Because those are two different animals. The high school is obviously like our new building. So that one is decent. But the elementary schools, I would say, are, you know, close to non-functional. They're very outdated. Yeah. And then the middle school is like. A hot mess. So we're actually applying for some climate leaders grant, which we're going to try to do HVAC upgrades there. But don't, you know, don't not say that the middle school is like by far the worst. And then elementary schools are equally as bad. Okay. I think you could say they're not functioning so that many or many classrooms are not getting sufficient cooling. Yep. Yep, and that's very important, obviously. Yeah, so those two are the one I want to flag. I'll let Tom and others who know way more about flooding than me. But that would set us up for some potential funding, Neil. Yep. Let me ask one more thing about flooding. Neil, my perception is that For the state, as contrasted right now to the federal, for the state, emphasizing the climate change elements of risks is a good thing because there's a lot of energy in the state around dealing with climate change. And one fundamental issue that impacts Weyland, I mean everybody, but Weyland in particular, is the stalling of the jet stream over us and the creation of multiple storms in a short period. That's what happened in 2010. That's what happened in 2015 as well, but that was earlier in the year. That's when we had the records of snow in eastern Mass. But that phenomenon is Is incredibly important. It's absolutely a climate change phenomenon. Should that be talked about, explained in this, in your plan? So I know that on page 124, one of the statistics that I thought was important is that the precipitation will increase by 6 to 14 percent. And they're seeing that trend has manifested itself in terms of making the current situation worse. But if you think there's other ways that we can add to that. Yeah, that's really not the essence of it. The essence of it is when you get, for example, in 2010, we had a big rainstorm in the middle of March. And we had another one a week later. And then we had another one a week later. And it was each of them. Piling on top of the last one in that short period of time that created the flooding. And in 2015, again, the snowstorm, we had no snow until, I don't know, the middle of February or something. And then all of a sudden it was one snowstorm after another and it wound up. Being a record. That phenomenon is the real issue. It's not just having 16% more or greater. So you're saying frequency is a more frequent occurrence. It's concentrated. They're more frequent and they're coming in these concentrated doses that sort of amplify and don't give communities a chance to recover. Yep. It's not only communities, it doesn't give the river a chance to river. Right, right. That's what I meant by communities. Jeanne? Yeah. So, I mean, technically, I mean, the climate change effect is, it's increasing the intensity of extreme events. And it's also, I mean, sometimes it's not so much that they're more frequent, it's that they're unexpected. And you know what? Tom is describing is the pattern is not something which is informed by the past. So when you have multiple events in rapid succession, that is not something that has happened in the past. However, in the context of our current understanding of climate change, that tells us it is something which we can expect more of the unexpected in the future. And for rainfall intensification, we have a lot of information which generally shows the northeast of the United States as the part of the country which is already experiencing the greatest rainfall intensification. And that rainfall intensification... Generates what we call flash flooding. Flash flooding is the most difficult flooding to forecast, but in anticipation, we can make infrastructure improvements over time that will protect us. Are you reviewing the plan, Janelle? I, like you, I have skimmed it. I thought a lot of it was boilerplate, and I want to try to give input on Wayland-specific issues. The one that I'd like to add that hasn't been mentioned yet is fire. And the fire risk is it's a combination of factors. It's that we have, as Ellen mentioned, we have more hot days, hot nights. We're having more intense periods of heat, which contribute to drought. And the summer drought is both more intense and it's extending. At the same time as the whole understory in the forest has been changing over the last 30 years. So when you have that dry understory, that's part of, you know, what we've learned in California, what we've learned in Canada. That is just a, it's just a tinderbox waiting for a match. And generally fires are human caused. We are, you know, at risk of lightning strikes, but the fire risk means that We really need to be thinking about access into our conservation areas. And that's something to talk with Linda about. Sure.
All right. Any other comments for Neil, who I appreciate coming to our meeting? So, Tom, I'm hoping you'll fill out those forms. You know, as you know, you will provide comment. I've given you the oral comment. I'll try to do those forms. But those two items, I think, Neil. And we're happy, Olivia, can give you more details about the school situation. John, we've had a whole, like, study done, which you can reference on battery feasibility at the middle school. So... John can send that study over to you. You can reference it, you know, that the town has actually already planned out what it would do and is ready to, you know, with funding, pursue that. Operative word with funding. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, any further thoughts for Neil? I really appreciate it. We'll try to make your deadline. So John, action item for you to get something to Neil, Olivia, maybe work with Neil on this language and Tom and I will make sure to do the forms. You know, Paul, if you want to take a look at if you have any bandwidth to anybody else. Okay. Great. Thank you. Your excuse for dinner. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. I just want to say, I think you get an A plus for keeping us on time this far. All right. Over to you, Olivia. All right. Yes, I am also pleasantly surprised with us being on time. That's great. So I was just going to talk about our green communities project status. So as you all remember, we were awarded green communities funding. We are in the current process of installing LED lighting upgrades in the town building and in the library. So the contractors have been here on and off throughout the past week. So they're almost done, which is exciting. Mark Hebert ordered their Not Emergency Pursuit Vehicle, and it's going to come in, I think, in March. Our facility's, you know, fully electric work van has been ordered and should be here in December. So exciting things on the horizon with green communities. And are there any questions on that before I move forward? I had one. I always feel like we need to do a good job of communicating to the public what's going on. So when we get these vehicles or when you have a picture of at least one of them, this is ripe for an article for the Wayland Post. Don't you think, Steve? I think this is ripe. So when I was slightly distracted there, Olivia, something coming in. When do you think the vehicles will arrive? They're going to come in at different times. The facilities one, I believe, is December, and I think police is like March. All right, let's try and do it in December. And then you probably have a picture of what the police one will look like. We can get a stock photo of the vehicle. We don't need the actual one in Wayland. But Steve, you want to try and work? You've offered before. I'd love to get your help. Work with Olivia on an article for this. I'm happy to. Olivia, whatever info you have now, if you can send that along to me, that would be great. At least I can scope it out and present it to the post. Editors in a way that they can understand it. Right. I think the press release is probably the best thing that we sent out on winning the award. And then, Steve, I would write it with a quote from the police chief who's been very supportive, saying, we're super excited about this vehicle, blah, blah, blah. And you could say, here's the thing. We'll have a picture of the actual vehicle. We could run this in December or early January. Yeah, no, definitely. I'll reach out to you, Steve, with, like, the specs of both vehicles and more information. Sounds good. Yeah. And the press release of where all the money is going, Steve, because not all vehicles, right? Yes. Yep. Okay. And then... So that's kind of where that's at. We just have the LED lighting upgrades currently going into the two buildings. Vehicles on order. So that was where all that money, you know, was going for green communities. Our climate leader funding application status, we're still working with Amoresco. By the end of October, they're supposed to have, you know, a drafted scope for us. We have to submit to DOER a notice of intent to apply for the February Climate Leaders Funding. It's due in November, just so they know that they're receiving an application from Wayland and kind of what our thoughts are and like how much we're asking for. Sorry, I got lost there. You said February and November. Sorry, I'm not following. Okay, so the Climate Leaders Funding application is due in February. In November to DOER, we have to submit a notice of intent. Just so they know, you know, who's asking for what. I thought you were talking about the following number. Oh, no, sorry. So, November 2026, you say, we're going to apply, we want to apply in February 2027. Right, right. So end of October, we're working with Amaresco. They're supposed to send us the specs and their plans so we can gather our information for the NOI Notice of Intent that's due in November. So waiting to hear back from them. Should be hearing back from them soon because we're nearing the end of October already. But we're still going to be focusing on HVAC upgrades in the middle school. That's the main plan. And this has to be deharmonization, so it's obviously stuff getting us off of gas onto electric. Yes, yes. I believe the plan is heat pumps outside of classrooms. I'm not sure if there are other. The middle school just had two boilers, not two, several boilers put into the basement, so we're not going to be getting rid of the boilers. But, yeah. Well, it'd be good for the committee when you hear from Amoresco on what they're proposing to do. It'd be great if maybe Amoresco could join one of our meetings saying, here's what we're thinking for this. That'd be great, Olivia. Yeah, no, I agree. I think once they get us more information, because honestly, right now we haven't heard much from them from more than what I'm telling you. So I think once we have a better outline of what our notice of intent is going to look like, we can have a representative come and they can give you more information. I mean, probably would line up with our next meeting so I can be in touch with them. And then, oh, so I was gonna, this isn't on the agenda because it's kind of. Development as of this week. Ellen had reached out to me about a Solarize campaign with several other Metro West towns that are being led by their sustainability managers and coordinators. Lexington and Newton are kind of like heading this charge. So they're putting out an RFQ for the municipalities that are interested. And Wayland got approval from the Select Board and Michael McCall to be on the RFQ to join this Solarize campaign. Oh, that's awesome. This is where Jillian reached out and said, hey, do you guys know about this? And I was like, I don't know anything about it. Maybe Olivia does. So you already reached out to Newton. That's great. And they were okay, including us. Yep. Caroline Weiss is very sweet. I'm friendly with her. So she was really eager and happy to have us on board. So we are going to be on the RFQ. But Michael kind of said tentatively, once we find out who's going to be vetting the solar installers, then the select board will be a little more involved and we'll vote if we want to continue with the process or not. But being on the RFQ is the first step. And last time around, John was our representative to vet the installers. Okay. So I don't know if he would have bandwidth again, or maybe, you know, it's not at the right time. It's the right time of year, Bill could do it or Paul. We have enough people from this committee who could probably join a multi-town vetting effort of solar installers. So I think we've done that before without from... From town residents and not town staff, Olivia. So it would not be a staff burden. Yeah, okay. I'll be in touch when I hear, you know, a little more about that. I think the plan is for the RFQ to go out like early next week, but I'm not entirely sure of the date. So I'll keep you guys in the loop with that. Great. Tom, did you have a question? Yeah. So does that have to be only for solar? I mean, I think we want to have a similar effort for heat pumps. Because what I hear from people over and over, how do I find an installer I can trust? And, you know, that's what you accomplish. This is just a solarized for solar. So let's do this. We could talk about it. That's been true. People have tried heat smart kinds of things like solar arrays and they have not worked as well because of the systems are so different. So we could talk about that more in another meeting. We have this sort of jam-packed meeting tonight. Yeah, okay. Hand up by somebody. Who is that? Is that John? Who is that? It says energy and climate. If your hands up, go ahead and unmute yourself and talk. Yeah. Hi, Olivia. Just a quick question. Did it include batteries? Or what was their decision not to include batteries? I believe it did include batteries. I can confirm that. But yes, I do think they were also a part of the RFQ. Yes. Thank you, Olivia. Great. Thanks for reaching out so quickly. That's great. Yeah, I'm excited. I think it'll be good. And then the last thing that I had on my list was reviewing our total funds and rebates that we received as, you know, a Sustainability Committee Department. Do you want me to share my screen, Ellen, or just like rattle off stuff? No, no, share screen. So remember, this was, we're always trying to show to the select board in the town. That we bring in resources, both grant funds and we access rebate funds. So, Bill, this also came from you saying, like, let's make sure we're sharing this with the FinCom. So, Bill, I'd like you to particularly look at what Olivia shares here. I wrote the report from the committee for the town and included the rebates and grants, but that's in the annual. Oh, that's what you're highlighting. Yeah. So this is already posted or will be posted to the town. If you can send it to me, I can't read the prints too small on the screen, but just send it to me. Yep, I'll send this to everybody. So total funding received last year was over $200,000, Bill. That's the bottom line. You know, it's about half grants and half incentives and rebates. That's the headline. Great, good. All right, so it's in the report that's already our report to the committee, which I wrote, and I always ask our Town staff person to fill in these numbers. I do think it's also, Olivia could probably give you, send you this and also like, since the beginning of time, I know we've brought in probably 1.4 million in grant funds, Bill, when I add it all up. But Olivia probably has a running total on that. But yeah, send this along. And I think this, we could think about... You know, Steve, when you write the article, this is the $100,000 grant. That's what's listed here. But you could also note some of these things, like in addition to the grant, the committee and sustainability staff have secured utility rebates and incentives and, you know, this grant and one other smaller grant. So let's be sure to always be publicizing this. All right. And I'll send this to the committee, and then I'll also send the, I can send the record of all the funding we've received to everyone, too. Neil, did you have something? I just had a quick question. Maybe it's the moment to ask whether any of the rebate and incentives that were on projects that were not funded with town capital money. Since those are the ones that were to be attributed to the whatever we named that slush fund. Don't call it a slush fund. It's not that. The energy fund. I think I asked you that question. I asked Mike that question before. Do you know what these were all barring or anywhere used with free cash and whether these funds went to that fund, Olivia? I think they're in, I think they are in that fund, but let me ask Mike tomorrow and confirm because I don't really know off the top of my head. So let me get back to you on that. And then just send a follow-up email to the committee on that. That'd be great. That'd be great. Thanks. All right. Any other questions for Olivia? All right. We're over to me. Seven minutes ahead of schedule. So, first of all, big, big thanks to Paul Dale for doing just a swashbackling good job on the have a slice, get energy advice. I was there. John was there. Paul was there. Was anybody else? I can't remember. Steve, are you? Steve, briefly, was at the beginning, but had a conflict. Yeah, I was there for a while, had a couple of conversations, but had to leave. So it was a great event. We had 45 people in attendance. We did an evaluation. So first of all, our outreach channels are what Energize Wayland usually use. It's in the newsletter. Olivia got it in the town newsletter. And then we tried this thing. We asked our volunteers in Energize Wayland to send an email to 10 or 15 friends, not just like dear friends, but more like dear Steve, you know, dear Bill. Here's something I think you might find interesting. Maybe I haven't a spreadsheet, but at least five or six or seven, like a not insignificant number of people came because of that direct friend outreach. So we call those people now our clean energy ambassadors and we can use them. I also asked you guys to do that as committee members. I don't know if any of you did, but it really took less than eight minutes. I know I had a standard email. I thought of 10 people in Wayland. I was like, you know. Dear Shirley, blah, blah, blah. So I think when we're having other events we really want to promote, I really would love to ask all of your help in doing that because we saw some results from it. The evaluation, and we had an A-frame up in front of Stop and Shop. The one at the council aging was not very effective, I think. We have to work with them on how to advertise. We did eventually get it on their banner board when you walked in. Stop and Shop was more than happy to put something out in front. So something to remember for the future. The manager there was great. I talked to him. So we did an evaluation. 100% of the people who attended said they learned something. And about 65% said they were ready to take a next step. We got about eight to 10 heat pump coaching requests out of that specific meeting. So of the 45, I'd say eight of them were us, right? They were... Clean Energy Coat. They were heat pump coaches. We had our two solar coaches there. We also had Abode there talking about tabling on rebates and homeworks was there. I don't know, Olivia, how many they signed up for an energy audit. It'd be great if you got that info from them for our next meeting. Like, it'd be great to just get the dashboard for our next meeting, how many they're signing up. So that's pretty in line with what we see in other events. Like two-thirds of the people, if we have a great event, feel like they're ready to take a next step. So that was great. What was really great was the letter Paul and I worked on went out from the town. Hopefully some of you got it. Some people didn't seem to get it. Did you guys get the letter from the town about heat bumps? Okay, that has resulted in another 12 heat pump coaching requests. We are up to about 20 new heat pump coaching requests in the last three weeks. So our heat pump coaches are getting a little overwhelmed. Ann Harris is managing this, may reach out to some other Heat Smart Alliance folks to help us. But that's fantastic. That's better than like any other community I know to, you know, targeted outreach, getting a bunch of requests for coaching. And then a bunch of people are just going to do it without coaching. I had an email from someone who wanted a coaching request, but when we actually got into it with her, she said, no, no, I think I'm good. So the letter was just kind of a nudge. So Paul, I think it had an impact, Paul, which is... Great to hear. So that's my update on that. Paul, do you want to say anything else? Oh, just a brief note. I've taken on a bunch of new heat pump coaching requests. I've had three meetings in the last day or so. All of them are a result of the letter. So that's how they... Got into getting a coach. Yep. Yeah. The letter, like I have to say, is one of the best things we did was negotiating in our CCA contract that the supplier would fund the letter. That was like a really good idea that we had. I don't know any other communities done that. And I think the letter was effective, Paul. We worked hard on it and did a lot of iterations. And I think it came out pretty well. I also, sorry, I want to add, I had a couple of residents call me about the letter and said it was helpful. And I, you know, gave Anne their information too. So it definitely was a success. Great. And we'll add all of those emails to the Energize Wayland newsletter list so those people can continue to, you know, get information. The Energize Wayland newsletter list is probably up to about 900 right now. So that's great. The, there was, I registered, but I couldn't attend. We, through the plug-in campaign, you know, we participate with four other towns in this. Mass Energize helps us. It was on new technologies. Did anyone go to that one? On Thursday last week? That had over 120 people registered. And when I check last, like, 18 people from Wayland. So that was about balcony solar unit heat pumps. And battery stuff. So there's a lot of interest in kind of new technologies. And it's great is that we can advertise these and we don't actually have to put them on. We just have to promote them. The one that I really want to talk about is on November. What is it? November 12th. I think it's a little bit. Through the plugin campaign. We got connected with building BEA, building electrification accelerator, some of you know, and there was sort of an interest in doing more with multifamily owners, which was part of the plug-in commitments with MAPC money. So this is again a situation where we've gotten somebody else to do the content and we just have to promote. So BE Plus has a mass, I'm really going to get into the jargon here, has a mass CEC grant to do outreach to multifamily owners. They've focused on Cambridge and Boston, which has Birdo, you know, the benchmarking rule. And if you're over a certain. BTUs per square foot per heating degree day. You got to do something. But they were interested in running a workshop for multifamily owners because we said we can get the word out. So Wayland is actually going to host it. Acton was, Andrea, this wonderful sustainability manager in Acton, who's done a lot with multifamily and condos, really wanted to do this. We were interested. We convinced her Acton was not geographically. Central. So Olivia was able to get us a room in the large hearing room. And this is being promoted in Sudbury, Wayland, Acton, I hope, Natick. I know Lexington and Wells, a bunch of other communities are also promoting it. We can hold up to 60 property owners. Olivia, you sent a letter out. We had a draft template letter. You sent it to about, what, 28, you said? Yeah, 30 people. 30 owners. I just send an email to condo board. Members and presidents with the letter alerting them to it. So it'll be a two-hour workshop followed by a lunch. They'll do some case studies that will show what multifamily owners did, including condos, to save energy and come up with like a multi-year plan, how you think about your property over time. And then what are the incentives you can access and what's the technical assistance you can access. So I think there will be some breakout groups of Multifamily owners who are condos and some that are not condos. So it's happening in Wayland. We are participating. And it's a benefit we're getting being part of the plug-in campaign that mass energizes running. And that ends the end of December. All the communities part of plug-in, Natick, Sudbury, Wayland, Acton. Ashland have said they want to continue to collaborate so that we're each not running our own little event where someone can organize one and we can promote it across communities. We did promote the Have a Slice in Sudbury and I think we had about four people come from Sudbury. I'm personally feeling a little tired with all these events that we've done. And the Wayland Festival is great. We talked to lots of people. Thank you for those who volunteered to staff our table. Paul was there, I know. Steven Lin helped out and lots of great conversations. And the Girl Scouts would like to do something with us. So I'm in communication with the Girl Scouts. So that is my update. Any questions? I think we should say Yahoo, first of all. I'm not understanding about this multifamily. I've dealt with one apartment situation, but that was individually, it had an individual heat pump. Are there apartments in Wayland that are centrally? Served by HVAC systems? Or what are we talking about here? Well, the multifamily, most of them don't have common spaces. They mostly have heat bumps in their own units. But there have been some condos that have successfully done something like, since a lot of the condos are the same, doing a big buy where they can, you know, go out to an installer and say, hey, you know, sorry, I'm changing a button here. Say, this is what we need. These are a number of owners interested. I think some of these owners are, we're also going to talk about EV rebates. There's some interest in, you know, putting EVs on the properties. In Wayland, it's just condos and they're minimal common spaces. So I don't think... Wayland has as many multifamily owners that fit the target, but they will talk to condo. There's a condo act and it took quite a while and I don't think they had much common space and they successfully did a lot of work in their individual condos. So we'll see. Okay. Okay. I mean, the one that I dealt with, each one. Own, own their condos and each one dealt with their HVAC individually and in principle it wasn't, I mean physically it was different from a house but you know in principle in terms of dealing with coaching it really wasn't different. Yep. But I think the condos can do something like offer a big buy, say. Oh, yeah. We all look the same. We can get maybe a better price. And if we all kind of do it the same time and how people... So those are the conversations that might be of interest. And sometimes there's some shared attic spaces in some of these condos that cut across. So we'll see what they have to say. But anyway, I feel like we're finally doing something on multifamily, which we haven't really done. So that was part of our intention. So that's what I've got. I'm going to try and call Gene because I know, oh, I don't have Gene. All right. So I think any other questions? I'm personally feeling a little burnt out because between there have probably been four events that I've been promoting and I'm just, I need a breather. So that's just me. So I guess we're ahead of schedule to talk about the Climate Action Plan. Nobody has Jean Milburn's cell phone sheet. Do we want to maybe go back to the diversity, equity, inclusion stuff while we wait? No, I don't think so. I think we're good to go. We could just end earlier, so it's okay. Okay. So let's just talk about it in general. Bill, did Bill go away? Bill, are you still with us? Yeah, he is. So, Bill, you were leading the discussion last time. I fear we've made no progress since our last discussion. So, you know, still would like to hand over to you, Neil. Think about, I think, when we last left, people with their sections presented. Olivia, I think, sent around two new climate action plans. Natick just redid theirs, and it's posted on their website. Jillian said we can look at that. The only thing I'm going to say about is, I think, in terms of getting input from people, we should go where people are, not have our own event. But I think we're a little bit stalled out here.
Bill, I'm going to hand it over to you to help us think. Okay, well, like I said, I don't have anything other than I just wanted to see how things were going. So it sounds like we're not making much progress at this point. Well, what was the intention? People who had their sections, looked at them, kind of gave an update on where we are. So I think the next step was for each. I think people were reasonably on board with like. Not making this a really long plan, but at least trying to come up with like a top 10. So I think you had said to people in each of their sections, come back with what you think your top four or five things are, right? And I don't think anyone's done that. Yeah, I don't remember how we left it. But yeah, I know, you know, each person who wrote a chapter is assigned the responsibility to update that chapter. Yeah, I mean, I think keeping it short and sort of bullet points, four or five items, you know, would be good. So maybe we could do that by the next meeting, guys. People who had their sections could look at their sections and come up with, you know, I still like the structure of what the municipality can do and what residents can do. We might pull the resident stuff into its own section. You know what, that's a formatting question, but the people who had their sections, do you think you... Could people do that? I'm guessing we'll have a November meeting. By the November meeting, come up with your, you know, your top five things. You can have a list of things beyond your top five, but what are your top five recommendations in your section? Are you looking for actual text to that section or just bullet point sound? I think bullet point. Yeah, I think, yeah, I'm much more into having an outline than text because I think an outline is more meaningful and it's easier to put together. So, yeah, lists and outlines are good. So, I'll raise my hand briefly. I thought we had some good points came out of the last discussion that we had. In particular, I recall that John had some, I thought, really compelling points. And I'll be honest with you, I can't remember exactly what they were. I think it was about focusing on commercial. They were so good. No, they were focusing on commercial. Yes, it was focusing on commercial stuff in addition, more focus on commercial stuff because we got 13% that we haven't done anything about in that regard. So I thought that was it. A critically important comment. You got another one, though, John. You got a second one. I think I remember what it was. It was kind of like, John, you were saying. Is it really worth us trying to do any more municipal solar installations? Like, is the juice worth the squeeze? Wasn't that it, John? Yeah, there was something like that. In some respects, it's a provocative question, so it's hard to say, oh, we're done here. But if we look at it from the perspective of bandwidth, what do we focus our energies on? Yeah, but I think the counterpoint was we have not done anything about batteries. Yeah, and that's... I can pull up the list that circulated with my comments. I wrote them down just to kind of make... Oh, you wrote them down. Excellent. I did look at the meeting minutes that Olivia put out, and I mean, very frankly, I didn't see these kind of remarks in it. And I was at the meeting, I confess, I was relying on having people's comments more accessible. What? But Olivia, there were those flip charts I was taking notes on. Do your meeting minutes not reflect those bullets from those flip chart pieces of paper? Honestly, I thought that I had, but I can go back and add, in the past I've been told to be more brief, so I guess a little more direction with the notes is important. Do you want more information or do you want less? Is there a transcript to the meeting? It's not more or less in general. In this case, we're trying to ask ourselves, what do we want to do with this report? So those were some big bullets, like, yes, we'd like to have a section. That's like our top 10. That's an aspiration, right? There was this focus more on commercial. There was, I think, John's question, like, is it a good use of our time to go after these big municipal PPA projects? Because they take a lot of effort. But you should go back to those. Do you still have those flip charts? Because we're relying on you and I didn't take them. Yeah, I can. What I'll do is I'll send everyone a big email tomorrow like I do, and I'll outline what we outlined from the last meeting. I mean, if you want to, if you just want to take a poor man's way out, just scan the freaking flip charts and email that. That would be fine. Take it on your phone. Just go. Just photo and, you know, that would be good. To me, personally, that would be important to me taking the next step. To have that information available, the result of the last discussion. And Ellen, if I may say, I think what we really might need at this point is an activated editor, somebody who's really going to go around and beat people with wet noodles or whatever. To do stuff. Do we have a volunteer? I'd like to unvolunteer. You do not volunteer, okay? I'm unvolunteering. That's got to be, that's got to be. Neil or Bill, either of you want to be that person just going after people to make sure we stand? Somebody has to proactively go after this, I think. I'm tempted to say I would do it, but I too am. I'm just buried right now. You've got to heat pump coach people. I've got heat pump coaching and I've got all kinds of other things that I'm engaged in, unfortunately, right now. Me too. I'm pretty buried. Neil, any willingness to just be the project managers to like, if we're seeing people come up with your top five, you know, we have a meeting like two weeks before, remind people like. So I missed like two months, you know, I just sort of checked out there. So I don't feel really up to speed to agree to do anything. However, I'm willing to look at it and tell you whether I'm willing to do something. Is there, what's the easiest place to? Look at where we stand. It's not that easy. I think what could happen is that everybody, the people who... Olivia should take pictures of the flip charts. The last thing we said was there was an email from me. It identified who had which sections. Neil, go back to the emails from me. And those people were supposed to look at their section and come back with, okay, what did we do well? What did we not do well? And what do I think we should do moving forward? And a bunch of people made slides for those. And I think Olivia has all of those, so she can flow her to all of those. Oh, yeah, yeah. Send the slides around, too. Send those to Neil. Tom did not. I don't remember if Tom did. I can't remember what Tom. Send all of those around to Neil. But then I think, Neil, what we just need to come up with is like a schedule. So for the next, if we say six months from now, we'd like to be done. With this, what does this look like? I think we're going to want some opportunities for some input from people. We've decided we're not going to hold special meetings, but we'll like go where people are, you know, like maybe at this climate thing that we agreed to do with HRDI, that committee. Some people like Phil Giudici offered to, you know, give us. Five or 10 minutes at a church service. And if people want to stay around afterwards, the Trinitarian Church can talk about it. So we can brainstorm how we might do that. But that's, we could just use some project management on this, Neil. Yeah. I don't have the time to be, you know, the only person leading it, but I can certainly, you know, pitch in. You know, I'll give it a try. If I can get all that stuff that you just described. And are these meetings recorded? So like the previous meeting, there would be a transcript? Yes, they are. And they're on Waking. Great. So maybe you could listen to the previous meeting. No, what I do is take the transcript and throw it in the chat GPT and ask it to summarize. I think the slides that people put together are pretty good. So Olivia should have all of those. But then, yeah, put it in ChatGPG and get a summary. Neil, I think that'd be a great, great way. The discussion obviously rambled on during the thing. You don't want to have to listen to all that. But yeah, use these new tools. I don't really know how to do this, so you'd be much more effective. All right, Neil, you are, I'm happy to, once he all gets dumped on you. Bill volunteered. I'm just happy to chat with you. I'll volunteer also. Okay, great, Steve. All right, so Steve and Neil together come up with like, let's just say provocatively, we'd like to be done six months. So that's November, December, January, February, March, April. By April, let's be done with this. So Neil, let's work backwards. I probably had six months in me. That's good. Right? Let's just, I mean, there's no, it's our own deadline. And Olivia, maybe you could resend to everybody the other most updated plans and a link to the plan that Nate just did. Yep, I can do that. So, and for the people on their own sections, I would encourage you to look at the other plans for what they did in your section. You know what I'm saying? Paul, nobody else has a section on. That's a different organizational structure to the Right. To the plan. Yeah. So that, but the same things, how we configure, yeah. So I'll be thinking about buildings with people. Olivia's going to think about transportation with people, and you can think about that too. So maybe at our next meeting, we can kind of think about structure a little. Yeah. Okay. So let's... Maybe if people for their sections could come back with bullet points or an outline of what you think should be in your section and be prepared to share that in one slide or two slides with the committee, we'll go from there. And you need to be informed by other plans. So John and, you know, Paul and Olivia. Tom, need to read these other plans. Is Jean on yet? Jean just texted me. I sent her an email. I don't have her phone number. I didn't have her phone number either. She texted me. I texted her. It goes to her Gmail. Let's see. She says, I'm in the meeting. Can you see me? She's here. There we go. There she is. Okay. Hey, Jean. Sorry. She's muted and video's off. I think that's on her to do. Yes. I'll send her a text. Yep, there we go. Yeah, I'm here. All right, Jean. So, sorry for our confusion. We got done early. It was good for us. So, I'll just update what I just said to the committee. We are going to update the camp. Our goal is to be done in six months. Neil and Steve have been coerced into being our project managers on this. Current plan is to take a look at the sections we did before. We have individuals who have been the leads on those sections, and last time they benchmarked those sections on kind of how we did. And at our next meeting, they're going to come forth with the suggestion of what they think in their section, transportation, buildings, clean energy, should be our priorities. Our goal in this plan is to not make it longer, but to make it shorter. And we agreed as committee that we would like to come up with like a... Kind of a top 10 list because you have 50 things in there. It's not helpful to Olivia. Like what should she focus on in a day with limited resources? So we're going to strive to have a, it may not be 10, but we're going to strive to have a very short list, which would be our priority actions. Of course, we'll be opportunistic. If we see grant funding for other things, we won't be silly. I forwarded to the committee your thoughts, which I think take a... We propose a fundamentally completely different approach, which is a broadening. We did just hear from Neil on the hazard mitigation plan, and we'll be providing input to that plan, which I encourage you to do as well. Our plan, you know, was probably just a couple more sentences, had a lot of focus on reducing emissions. Tom had taken the lead in the past on the sections around resilience and adaptation. And we... To the extent we can, we don't want two pants fighting. We would like to take a sense some things can go in the hazard mitigation plan and we can reference it. We would do that. So that's my overview. Quick interrupt, folks. Quick interrupt. This is my birthday. I have grandkids calling me. They're waiting for me. I'm going to unfortunately say goodbye. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Paul. Happy birthday. You have your priorities. Go for it. Go for it, Paul. All right. So that was my introduction, Jean, but happy to give you a few minutes to share your thinking. Sure. Let me begin by saying what I think Wayland residents think the Climate Action Plan is, and it's not that. When I listen to environmental, you know, sensitive people in town, they seem to think that the Climate Action Plan is a sort of master coordinating Document setting forth the town's objectives for environmental management. It may only be because they don't know about any of the other documents that exist, or they may not know about the other committees that exist. And it's my impression, I read about all the different parts of the town staffing and town committees. And basically we have a system that does a lot of good work. The groups in particular areas are paying attention to their scope of work. But it's kind of like a Swiss cheese. There's a lot of environmental topics and issues that have no home amongst all these committees and staff. And it leads to a suboptimal outcome. You know, we've done a lot of work in town. We've got become green communities and stuff. But if you really sit down and look at the system, it's very disjointed. And I am having a hard time figuring out how to cut into this conversation with the community. I have, you know, talked to people on other committees and gotten kind of, well, that's not our scope of work response. If they were put forward as town priorities, would actually make the work of these bodies much easier because they would have clearly stated public objectives for tackling some of our environmental problems. So, you know, if the answer is, you know, I'm sort of focused on biological processes, not on sequestering carbon. If you feel the ideas I have don't fit in what we are calling a climate action plan, number one, I'd recommend that you rename that document because it really, it's the plan that Energy And Climate is using to pursue their objectives. I don't think the citizens think it's a town-wide climate action plan. I understand that in some industries this language has special meaning. And you can talk to your colleagues in other towns, people who have similar professional preparation. But I think then it's getting misinterpreted in the town that we have done a comprehensive overarching plan to pull together all these fragments and fill the holes. And we really haven't done that. I guess, you know, you guys have been there a long time now and I'm not going to keep you later. I guess if any of you would like to engage in this conversation with me, I would welcome that. If you have suggestions about how I might proceed to get Someone in authority to be willing to undergo the planning process required to pull together an integrated environmental plan. I'd love to hear it. But I think you've just been clear with me that what you're looking for is a shorter, leaner document and the topics I have raised don't have a place in it. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to let Tom speak. We do have these, I think we're struggling, Gene, with the part we're not struggling with is on the mitigation, how to reduce emissions. That's, you know, we have a charter, we have a charge that's clearly in our charge. And that's what we've been mostly focused on. These other things start to get into like conservation has a place in this, right? The health department, like, and we have not seen our role as trying to be the coordinating thing for that. We sort of feel like we got our hands full. So, um, when I looked at Jane's, um, Document. What struck me is that in the world of climate, there are generally regarded two segments of that. One is mitigation and the other is adaptation. And this committee started out as the Energy Committee. And I, and somewhere along the line, we acquired the expanded title of Energy And Climate Committee. But that recognized the fact that, in fact, all of us who were members of the committee at the time were motivated by the climate issue. And even though it wasn't politically correct at one point to say it was about climate, we were supposed to just say it's about saving money on energy. We were all really motivated by climate issues. And so that... That change in title recognize that and formalize that. That didn't really change the orientation of the committee. It remained on energy. And I was the odd person out in that my other major hat is about the river. So I was engaging with people who were into adaptation issues, especially around the river. But I was the lone wolf there, and I felt I had to force something into the camp about adaptation, and I thought the best I could do was to put in adaptation elements that directly related to human risk issues. And, you know, if you read the camp, that's what you'll see. It was about flooding and it was... The only stuff about ecology really was around trees, but I could justify that as directly related to trees sequester carbon and trees provide shade. You know, it was all about the human effects. And the other huge part of adaptation is the ecological issues, which are what you've been raising, Gene. I didn't feel that I could really even get into that because, again, the rest of the committee was all oriented around energy and, you know, at best, the energy effects of shade from trees, for example. So I think you're absolutely right. There's a hole here. And, you know, I was on the CONCOM 50 years ago. And I was on the CONCOM when it was transitioning from the Town General Environment Committee to the regulator of the Wetlands Protection Act, which they increasingly became and now are almost entirely focused on. So, again, that created a huge gap. I'm agreeing with you that there's a hole here in terms of environmental protection. I'm not sure this hole exists in other towns. Certainly in my interaction with other towns around the river, I see things like the Concord Natural Resources Commission, for example. I don't really know much about them, but it... My impression is they have a lot wider scope of operations than anybody in Wayland does. So I think maybe we need a whole new town body. And I really don't know how to go any further than that except to say that. Busy trying to figure it out right now. It's an interesting project. I'm going to thank you all for your kind attention. I don't want to keep you any later. We're in the dinner hour now. And, you know, Godspeed with your work. And you'll probably hear about me twiddling around with these issues around town. May I ask who your select board representative is to your committee? Yeah, it's Bill Whitney. Okay, great. Yeah, I mean, I would, you know, I certainly would agree that there's need for like cross-sector, like really looking at environmentally, you know, what are we about in Wayland and where do we want to go? We have a small slice. We have a slice in that, but I don't think it's us. And when you look at our, like our charge, it's way beyond what that select board charged us to do. So you, yeah, I think you can consider us helpful players, but not leading, you know, not leading roles. But I did have, I really had a great, Gene was on what I thought was pretty interesting webinar on ADUs that MassEnergize put together and it, there's this whole new ADU toolkit website where you can, from MassClean Energy Center, you can put in an address and it can show you, you know, is your lot amenable to an ADU? Jean brought up a lot of great questions on like, yeah, but wouldn't you have to upgrade the septic and like a bunch of good logistical questions. And I think they were listening, Jean, when you gave them some thoughts. Bev Craig over there is terrific. So I'm thinking about in our... Climate Plan on buildings if there's something we would want to call out on ADUs. Not clear to me, Jean, you know, what that would look like. But it's better for climate, right, to not... Absolutely. Not build brand new stuff, to build mother-in-law apartments in there. So I think we could encourage that and we could call it out in the camp, possibly. Yeah, I think looking... If you're listening to our governor, we need to build tens of thousands of housing units around the Commonwealth. People can't afford housing and are under-housed. And if the environmental movement doesn't get in front of this stuff, What we will find is that the state in its desperation will keep pushing projects, pushing policies that are not environmental first. Build as many housing units as fast as you can. Put the financial inducements in place that will cause developers to choose to invest. I think we have a lot of possibility in this town, frankly, with some zoning work to create incentives so that with ADUs, people invest in their own property. They realize the return on investment themselves and they commit much less environmental damage. If we can get in front of that and create incentives to move people in that direction, I think we can do a lot to avoid having very destructive projects come into town. Can I actually jump in here really quick? Sure. So Wayland did pass a specialized stretch code, and that's a really important point. So any new builds in Wayland, I believe... There's a number of stipulations, but they can't be fully heated by gas is one of them. So that's something to think about. It is one of the regulations that municipalities need to become a climate leader. And a big motivation, I'm sure you've heard about being climate leaders through DOER, is it makes municipalities eligible for up to a million dollars of funding. So it's kind of an incentive in a way to be more Conscious of new builds and to become having that specialized stretch code. So in Massachusetts, at least, we are kind of thinking of those things. I don't know if that kind of helps bridge that gap, but that's something maybe you could speak to our building department about if you're interested in learning more about it. But Wayland is pushing for new builds to be environmentally friendly. Absolutely. And the main environmental... Impact they have is they get dropped onto lawns. Lawns are essentially an environmental desert. They don't support our indigenous life forms. And if they're getting dropped, if these buildings are getting dropped on top of garages, if they're getting put in basements, if they're getting put on lawns, our functioning ecosystem has minimal damage. If builders come in and build the way they're used to building, they do a lot of damage. And I really think we could work on having some... Zoning bylaws that would provide incentives for developers to build a different kind of cluster housing than what we have, where we're actually looking at housing units probably under 1,400 square feet in clustered properties so that you're setting aside some of the land in conservation and you're giving people much smaller properties to maintain. So that's just one idea in this constellation of things that I will throw out. Have you reached out to the planning board, Jean? I'm starting to work on that. We're going into the housing production plan. Oh, good. I want to use that exercise as a vehicle for getting out of the box and saying, OK, we've had so many of these plans. Everybody worked hard. Lots of good objectives. We got some good stuff done. We got a lot of stuff that we planned for. Didn't happen. Let's see if we can find a path through with special emphasis on environmental protection while we meet the state need for housing. Yep. That's what I'm up to. That'd be great. That'd be great. Well, I'm going to say goodnight, guys. You guys need to talk. Yeah, we do. The last thing on our agenda was to approve the minutes. I am sorry, I have not had a chance to read them. I was just looking for my email and I somehow can't find them. Have other people read them? I just have been backed up. I can't remember reading them either. I'm not. Olivia, I think we're not going to vote. They were attached to the agenda. They were attached to the agenda, but I can't. That email is not. Give me. You want me to forward it to you right now? Yeah, if everyone takes five more minutes, maybe we can just. Okay, yeah, just give me one second, please. I'll just find it quick. Hold on. I can't find it. John, did Mike get back to us about. It was the email that Olivia sent out. Well, I guess. I just forwarded it to you guys. A few minutes were part of that note you sent around, Olivia, with the agenda for today. I just forwarded it. There's two attachments. John, I think we didn't reply to this guy, Mike, about this meeting on the solar landfills. Yeah, we still need to do that. We missed that. All right, everybody read this real fast. I think the detail was great. I think we could probably be more. Succinct on the camp. We talked about updating it. Boom, done. And maybe a paragraph or a sentence on next steps. I mean, this is fine. It doesn't include everything, but it's probably fine. It doesn't include the next steps. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Whatever we call them, section leader would try to identify top three to five priorities for the next version of the plan and that Olivia would share updated plans from whatever they were native or they were Olivia, Lexington and whatever. Can you see my screen? Hold on one second. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Can you say that one more time? All right. So at 540, after the sentence you wrote, write a period. Period. Committee C-A-M-P, camp section leads, agreed to identify three to five top priorities for a revised plan. Period. No, not right. Committee camp section leads agreed to identify three to five. Priority actions for their section. Got it. All right. Think about what we're saying. Yeah. Period. Yeah. Perfect. Period. And then Olivia agree. Olivia will circulate updated plans from Natick and other towns that recently updated their plans. Unless you remember those other towns. I don't remember them.
So, John, I don't know if there's anything, you know, people in their section. I don't think that's exactly what I said in my section, but it's fine. It's good. It's fine. It's fine. I think I just need a little more direction from you, Ellen, because I've been told in the past, keep it simple, don't say too much, and now I'm being told more detail. No, no, no, it varies by the thing. So I think this is fine. I think you could just attach the slides to the minutes, because that way you don't have to take notes. Yeah, I wasn't aware that's what you wanted, so I can definitely do that. What do the rest of the people think then? Because she's really summarizing what was in the slides. She could just attach the slides to the minutes. Isn't that easier, guys? I think this was a good summary, except for the fact that there are some clear next steps that should have been reflected. Yeah, I think this is fine. You don't need to have discussion, but you do need to capture planned actions. Right, the next steps. Yep. So I think that's what you want to capture in these minutes is like, what were any decisions and next steps, Olivia? All right. Yeah. I think this level of detail is fine. It just missed the next. So that when like Neil read it, he didn't know, okay, so now what's next? Does that make sense to you? Got it. Okay. All right. This is good. All right. I need a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Second. All right. All those in favor? I see Tom Sciacca, Bill Huss, Steve Garone, Ellen Tohn, and Neil, you're not voting because you weren't there. Right. Yep. Okay. And our next meeting, let's just, Olivia, when is our next meeting? Do you know? Somehow it doesn't show up in my calendar because I don't indicate. It's Tuesday, November 17th. Yeah, I have the 17th. All right. Ah, yes. Okay. Okay. Everyone good enough with that? Mm-hmm. This was a good meeting because we got updates on a bunch of stuff. So Paul and I will work with human rights diversity and inclusion. Olivia, maybe work with John and Paul on the MAPC stuff. Let's make sure we get our comments in early, guys. To them, so that we're not waiting for public meeting. That's not helpful. And then I hope people can comment on the hazard mitigation plan. I thought it was productive to have Neil with us. All right. Motion to adjourn. So moved. Any objections? Without objections. Thank you, Olivia, for organizing. And thanks, everyone. Bye-bye. Bye.
Thank you so much. Jeannot and Lourdes Juarez is here also. Actually, our main focus was that, well, let me tell you a little about Human Rights Day. It's an event, a day that was designated back in 1948 after World War II, and it's a statement of 30 statements about human rights. And it's celebrated on December 10th of every year. And we read, what we have done the past three years is to read the statements in various languages and then have some sort of program that, you know. Reflective of how we work on human rights, both trying to be a local focus, but willing to talk about the greater world. And Janot has done a lot of international work and had an interesting opportunity to look at a climate change plan for another country in the world. And I'll let her say that if she's allowed to say that. But anyhow, that made me think, because I didn't have a program yet, that it would be really great to do something about climate change and how that's related to human rights. And so we reached out to you because you are our local climate change group and to think about how we might be able to collaborate on a 15 to 20 minute. Presentation or display. And anyhow, actually, Jono, do you want to take it off from here? And maybe you had, you did have some more specific things, but so that's kind of what we've done. Let me just at least say that we usually have 40 to 50 people at this event. Last year we had at the COA and it's always a very meaningful event and touching. And we get, you know, lots of different languages to express, you know. to make these statements in different languages. So as you know, I'll let you take it off from here. Thanks, Marianne, for that great overview of Human Rights Day and how we've been celebrating here in Wayland. And, I mean, it's great that we've been attracting a lot of people who, whatever their different backgrounds, like to read through the statement, participate in reading the statement. And because there are 30 elements of the, you know, Human Rights Declaration, it's a nice way for... Townspeople to participate in the event. And this year, we wanted to focus on climate as a human right. There are some, you know, kind of landmark decisions in the international law arena that are elevating the understanding of climate as a human right. I mean, under the United Nations, the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment encompasses climate. And that's, you know, it's I think it's. It's both inspiring and important for people to understand that climate is really a human right, but also that the effects of climate change are quite disproportionate and that the most vulnerable do suffer impacts first and have less capacity to adapt. And rather than talking about You know, the disparities so much. We would like to keep the focus kind of local and, you know, and to inspire people, you know, about what we are doing and what we can do and how we can participate as Waylanders. So that's why we reached out to you, to the Energy and Climate Committee, because we'd really like to highlight the camp, the Climate Action Mobilization Plan. We're really looking for your joining us. We're willing to carry the organizing burden as much. As you like, or to share, you know, the planning of the program as much as you would like. I know that you have lots of fun stuff. You've got, you know, like interactive games and things that we could bring out. We do, you know, we do look at this, I think, Marianne, it's going to be a Thursday night this year, December? Thursday night, yep, 7 to 8.30. Right, so it's a fairly short. Early evening program. We like to start being on time, let people go home for the rest of their evening. I just wanted to invite the Energy Climate Committee to, you know, you may need to vote, you know, to co-sponsor this year's event with us with a focus on climate as a human right. And if you'd like to share any particular aspects or challenges with the Climate Action Mobilization Plan, We would love to make that the program if you wanted to bring some of the games. Some people do bring their children. So it can be a focus on all ages. And I guess that's enough about it. Let me ask for your ideas. Hopefully enthusiastic. So let me try and take, we have a crazy agenda tonight to know. So my, I'm happy to hear what people thought. I think it'd be great if we co-sponsored this. So I think I would like to propose a vote. I think I would like to propose that we maybe identify a couple of people who would work with the Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Committee on the content of the program because we don't have time to sort that out here. I think it's also an opportunity for us to say to people, we are rewriting our camp and it's a good chance for us to seek some input so we could use it as another form for that. And Paul, I also thought the presentation Paul did at our Have a Slice, Get Energy Advice thing about actually what's making energy expensive now and what you can do about it was a great 10-minute presentation. So I was thinking, you know, we might. Kind of reuse that because we worked hard on it. It was great so that we could do something where it's like, here, five great things we've done in Wayland. We're doing an update of a plan. We'd love your input on this. Well, maybe five great things we've done. Here are things that you can do now. And then the third part would be, we'd love to input on the plant. So that was my thinking, but maybe we could just quickly go around, see, why don't people raise their hand if they, let me actually, I can call him Paul since I just sort of volunteered him to see and then go around what other people think and then see if we can finish this up in five minutes and then vote. Well, thank you, Ellen. Ellen and I have corresponded on this before the meeting, and I did say that I would be more than happy to participate in this particular exercise. So she's not giving me away in an unwarranted fashion. So I think that in the interest of time... Ellen, if you want to call, I'm only an associate member, so I don't actually get to vote on the Energy Committee, but if you want to call a vote, or maybe I can't even make a motion, I guess, but somebody should make a motion to co-sponsor the December 10th Human Rights Event in Wayland, Massachusetts, or however they want to phrase it, and then we can appoint. Paul Dale, as the Energy Committee liaison to the Human Rights, the DEI Committee, could work out the program. Does someone want to, any other comments before we make that motion? Because we can make the motion and then discuss it. Could someone make that motion? Neil, could you make that motion? Yeah, I'm happy to make the motion that we co-sponsor the event and Paul take responsibility for coordinating with the committee. And I point out that December 10th is also my birthday. So I think if you could work that in there, Paul, that would be really helpful as well. Well, actually, I can one-up you on that, Neil. Today, October 20th, is my birthday. Okay. Wow. So consider this a present. There you go. I need a second on the motion. Would someone second it who's a member, please? Second. Thank you, Steve. Further discussion from people on this? I mean, just what does it mean to co-sponsor? Is it just helping out with the program? I think our name would be listed when they promote it. And then we can use our outreach channels to help promote it. I would imagine like Olivia could work with getting things in the newsletter. And then we could ask Energize Wayland to put it in their newsletter, which I'm sure would not be a problem. That goes to about 900 people in town. And, you know, we can coordinate on social media. Outreach, hopefully get it in the all schools newsletter. You know, there's a bunch of outreach channels that we could work on, and I'm happy to work with Paul on that. All right. Any other comment? Or, Olivia, you look like you want to say something. I was going to say happy birthday, Paul, and happy to help how I can with coordinating the event. And no further discussion? Okay, I'm going to take a vote. I can actually see your hands. So all those in favor, raise your hands. So I see yeas, Olivia, for me, Steve Garone, Neil Gordon, and Tom Sciacca, and Bill Huss. Those are our voting members. All right. Shockingly, we're going to stay on time here within one minute. So, Genoa, Marianne, you can reach out to me and Paul Dale, and we'll try to coordinate that. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Thank you so much. Looking forward. And happy birthday. And Paul, Paul can probably, we'll send you Paul's presentation, which was great. So it was terrific. I'd like to see that as well, actually. All right. Send that to me too. Paul can send it around to the whole committee. And then Olivia. Maybe you can forward to these other folks because you have their emails, Olivia. Yeah, definitely. Sounds good. All right. So, Olivia, I will send to you and the ECC members, and then I'll count on you to distribute it outside of the ECC. All right. Yes, sir. Got it. Very good. Great. All right. So now we're going to turn to a... So I don't know if we actually... Co-noticed this meeting, Rob. You know, Olivia, you and Rob co-noticed it, but we did invite the planning board to join us now for a presentation from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and the work they are doing on developing a solar bylaw. And just to explain to us, we were all kind of involved in this a little last fall. This is a new effort, and I appreciate the planning board and Rob sort of, we had asked if you guys could come help us understand what we are doing so we can figure out how we can be most helpful in the process. So I'll hand it over and note that John Harper, who was on here a second ago, has he flipped off? Does anyone see John? He was here. I know he's on a train going to New York, so Amtrak has. Funny coverage. But John is the solar expert on our committee, so we would probably love to have John. Be involved in the process and taking a look. There he is. There he is. So, John, I just said you're the solar expert on our committee and that for things like solar bylaw, John is probably best suited to be most helpful in the process. All right. So, I hand it over to you guys. May I just say something? Right now, we have two members of the planning board here. There's another one who may be joining us. When that person joins us, I need to convene a meeting. Perfect. You let me know. Just raise your hand, Annette, make a big sign, whatever works. Okay? Yep. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. All right. Over to, I don't know who is, is it Josh? Who's doing it from MAPC? I'll take it away from you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Olivia, do we have rights to share our screen? We do have a couple of slides. Also, happy birthday, Paul. Okay. You should be able to now. Let's see.
Don't see it. I promoted you to host. You might have to accept it. Do you want to try making Ilana the host, too? Looks like it's not working for me. Thank you. Okay, I just did that. Ilana, did that come through at your end? Can you try and share? Yes, I am working on that shared right now. She's listed on my participant. They're both listed on my participants list as co-host. It has to be at my end. Sorry about that. I don't see the function. Got it. Perfect. Okay, good. Great. Go for it. Tweet. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having us. We're here from MEPC, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, the RPA for our region, and here to share some updates on the Clean Energy Infrastructure Zoning Bylaw. Give me one second. Looks like my Zoom is not cooperating. Okay. And just a quick introduction to ourselves. I'm Sumik Shah. I'm a Clean Energy and Climate Planner at MEPC. I will let Alana say hi, too. Hi, everyone. My name is Alana Zabar. I am a Regional Housing and Land Use Planner at NUPC. Thank you. We also have Jeremy Koo usually helping Welland, not here today, and we're also joined by two of our colleagues, Josh and Emma, in the call. We have a brief presentation for you here today. I'll start with some background on the state regulations that are kind of driving this work, and then Alana will walk through our approach to actually drafting and developing the bylaw. And we'll have time for questions at the end, but feel free to jump in or use the, yeah, jump in if something isn't clear along the way. Next slide, please. Next one, too. Thanks. So in November 2024, Governor Healy signed an act called the An Act Promoting a Clean Energy Grid, Advancing Equity and Protecting Great Bears, which is also known as the 2024 Climate Act. One of the major components of this act was reforming the clean energy infrastructure projects, how clean energy infrastructure projects are sited and permitted in our state. Historically, permitting processes have varied significantly across Municipalities with different applications requirements, review procedures and timelines. So this is also identified as a barrier for development of clean air infrastructure. And so the Climate Act really addressed these challenges by establishing requirements for municipalities to Offer consolidated local permitting for smaller clean energy infrastructure projects. These include solar PV, battery energy storage systems, BESS, and some electric distribution infrastructure. And DOER pursuant to that law issued regulations for the optional consolidated local permitting process that all municipalities need to offer this fall. Next slide, please. So under this law, the clean energy infrastructure projects are classified either into small and large infrastructure facilities. As you can see on the screen, for generation solar projects. Less than 25 megawatts are considered small, which is virtually all or not most of the solar in our state. And for storage, that's less than 100 megawatt hours. And the distinction here is that for permitting authority, municipality holds that authority for small clean energy infrastructure facilities and the larger one go to the state's energy facility siting board. Next slide, please. So this is an overview of the consolidated permitting process. MEPC is working with Robert separately on establishing and kind of helping set up this process for Wayland. Just wanted to make a note that this is the required optional process the municipality needs to set up, but the BESS and storage bylaw are optional. However, this presents an opportunity for municipalities to kind of review their existing zoning and establish. Clearer standards for development of small clean energy infrastructure in the municipality. Through this work also, we've heard increasing interest in amending bylaws or thinking about solar and BESS. So municipalities are proactively being clear about establishing expectations for future developments or proposals that come through. Next slide, please. MEPC, with other RPAs, has received funding to provide technical assistance to municipalities to comply to the regulations and also help amend zoning bylaws and draft these zoning bylaws to prepare municipalities to do just that. Nearly all municipalities in MEPC's region right now lack zoning for battery energy storage. We're actually working with more than 20 municipalities interviewing the solar PV zoning and developing best zoning, so Willen is one of them. I will pass it over to Lana with that context on how we're actually working with Wayland. Thank you for that. So we're going to review sort of our approach to zoning for Wayland. And then at the end, we'll take any questions that you all have. It's worth noting that we are just starting off this process with Wayland. And so we are not coming to you today with a completed zoning bylaw to show you what we have already written. We want to sort of explain what the project is that we're working on, give you all a heads up about what is to come later, just so you all know. So I want to start with why zoning. As was mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, the consolidated permitting process is a requirement that every municipality must take and actually had to comply with by October 1st. So we have passed that deadline and Wayland is in good shape, but... When it comes to zoning, that is not required. We are encouraging it, though. The reason is because zoning allows you to regulate what development might look like if a developer came and said, I want to put solar in your community or I want to put a battery energy storage project in your community. And so when you have the zoning in your bylaw, We are able to regulate things like what landscaping might look like, what fencing and screening might look like. It allows you to prepare your community for a development should it come. Again, by adopting the zoning, it does not mean that you are going to automatically get a bunch of development proposals. It just means that you're prepared if you do. The state has developed model bylaws for both solar and bass. Best being the battery energy storage. And these allow for you to increase the requirements when the lots are abutting residential properties. They allow for you to make reasonable standards for environmental resources for any type of development. What the zoning does not allow you to do is ban any sort of solar or BESS infrastructure in your community. You do have to allow it. It also does not allow you to write your zoning bylaw so strict that even though it's technically allowed, it would be really difficult to produce solar or bass in your community. So we want to make sure that we're very careful with how we go about drafting this to fit within the context of the Wayland community, but also make sure that you're not at risk legally for being challenged at the state level. So how are we going to do that? So the first step, as I mentioned, is that the state has created model bylaws for solar and vests. These are going to be sort of our bread and butter. They're going to be the foundation for what we build for Wayland. But that doesn't mean that what the state has drafted perfectly fits your community. And so we're going to start looking at the guidelines that you had drafted last year and take those into consideration, as well as the existing zoning in your community. And so wanting to make sure that the language and where there is flexibility fits your community and your development patterns. And that's how we're going to create a clean energy infrastructure bylaw for Wayland. Now, how are we going to make this easy for you all? Because we know that adopting new zoning is not like, it's much easier said than done, right? And so we want to... Elena, sorry to jump in. I think John has his hand up. Oh, yes. Sorry about that. Hi, Alana. Thank you. And my apologies, I'm on an Amtrak train in New York City. Wi-Fi is fluky. So you may have covered this. About 10 years ago, there was a wave of towns that passed solar zoning bylaws that established it as a by-right ability for residential, particularly rooftop-type stuff. And the most recent legislation really wasn't focused on the residential so much as on the stuff on the ground and commercial, et cetera. But would you be layering into... These draft guidelines, that earlier notion that under state law, that it is a by right for residential. You mean residential rooftop, correct, John? Residential rooftop in particular, yeah. Yes, so we will be taking, basically the state model builds off the previous model for residential rooftop, so it does combine rooftop and ground-mounted solar. So both will be included in what we draft for Wayland.
Not sure that answered the question. I think the question was, and it may be that you're still thinking about this, that is that by right, or is there still a new, or would we be creating a new permitting process for people putting rooftop systems on their homes? John, we can't, you got to turn your camera off. John, turn your camera off. Let's assume we ask whether it's by right and answer that question and move on. Yep. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. I wanted to wait till the audio was stopped because I know it can be hard to layer audio. So as we move through this, we are going to follow the state model, which right now does include by right in residential for building rooftop solar. Great, thank you. If no further questions, I'm going to head back to the presentation, but this is actually one of our second to last slides, so then we can open it up for more conversation questions there. So talking about how MAPC is going to make this process easier for Wayland. What we're going to do right now, the state model exists as two separate bylaws, both a solar PV bylaw and a best bylaw. We're going to consolidate this into a clean energy infrastructure bylaw. There is precedent for this across the state. Many communities are thinking about doing this. This makes it a lot easier when you have to go to town meeting rather than standing up and trying to get multiple things approved. You're able to do it in one go. It also lets people understand what the difference is. You're able to have that conversation a little bit easier. What we're going to do is embed it into your existing zoning rather than creating an overlay district. This will make it, again, easier for folks to think about where solar could be or where battery energy storage could be. Existing zoning bylaw. That way we know it's something that, one, your community is going to be okay with, and two, the state is going to approve. And then, you know, the most beneficial way we can make this easy is that we're going to take the first crack at this. We're going to come up with a draft and bring that to you all so that we can say, like, here's what we think makes sense, and that's when we're going to have a conversation about the specifics.
Yeah. So quickly, before we go to questions, just a note on the timeline. Ellen, actually, do you want to share your thoughts? That was actually my question, which is, are you trying to do this for the town warrant for Springtown meetings? I didn't see a slide on timelines. Is it the next slide? Or did you move? You went to questions. Oh, that's good. Okay. Sweet. Yes, that is correct. We're aiming for the May to vote on it in the May down meeting. As you just heard, we've started or beginning to start. We've met with Olivia and Robert on kind of defining the scope of the technical assistance we're providing. We hope to share a draft of the consolidated bylaw with the town sometime in November and then to get ready for the public hearing. Anticipated January of next year. And then submit the warrant article with the feedback incorporated and then be ready for town meeting. And in between these, we'll coordinate with Robert and Olivia on figuring out input touch points and get the feedback from you and also from planning board. Yeah. But thank you. Definitely open for questions. I think I saw Tom first, then Annette. Okay, so... Comments more than questions. Number one, I'm really happy to see that you've included battery storage in your planning because I'm an electrical engineer and I've been working on alternative energy stuff for over 35 years. And when I look at our opportunities in New England, given both our climate and the I have heard some comments from members of the public, non-technical people who are paranoid about Batteries. And You know, they're worried about an electric car bursting into flames in their garages. And, of course, I ask them when the last time they heard of that actually happening occurred. And, again, I've been in the energy business a long time. I know 300 houses a year blow up from natural gas explosions in the U.S., but somehow that doesn't become a reason to not install more. More gas. But that kind of bias exists. So do you have plans to deal with that? Thank you for that comment and question and for believing in the potential of BESS. We're really excited about that. But yes, actually, we DOER, we recently, MEBC got funding from DOER's Advancing Massachusetts Power Grant to kind of come up with safety and training surrounding BESS for our municipalities. So we just got the funding. We're getting started to kind of prepare those training for municipal staff, fire safety and departments and staff and for general public as well. Other consultants, but mostly putting together a training program. And Emma, if there's anything else I'm missing on that. But definitely a concern that we've heard all across the board. How do I speak? Can I speak? Yeah, I just... Okay. The timeline. We're required to submit our... Town meeting articles, I believe, by January the 15th. So the hearing would have to be in advance of that. And we'd need time to incorporate any public comments that come from people. So I'm thinking that if it's possible to do the public hearing earlier and or no later than the first week in January. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that note. I would just second that also. We've all lived through the tyranny of the warrant schedule in Wayland, so let's not bump up right against it. That'll cause way too much. I did, Warren, when I talked to MAPC last week, we discussed about the timelines are really tight, and so we would need to have a public hearing, like you said, in January to be ready. So the plan would be to have a draft before that. For a bit to look at before we finalize, something to be posted. So that is, we have a tight deadline, but I'm hoping that MBPC can put together stuff that they have from the past that they can put together for Wayland. That makes more sense. In January, we have, I'm looking at the schedule for planning board. We have January 6th as a meeting. So that could be a good meeting for the public hearing potentially. So we can try to shoot for January 6th. That deadline works for us. That means only nine days to deal with public comment and have a board meeting and revise anything. That's really tight. I'm going to second Annette's comment on this. If you can find a way to have a public hearing in December, I know the holidays are difficult, but if you get a lot of public comment, I'm hoping that for the Energy Committee, y'all, that you'll come to us before, you know, we'll have an opportunity to provide any input before the public meeting for public comment so that you're not getting last-minute stuff from us that would be problematic. So if we could build in something in early draft, and again, John is probably our most expert person on this, Paul also a little bit, we'd appreciate the opportunity to provide some input earlier. I'm with Annette on this. That's tight, Robert. You know, it's really, it doesn't give you much breathing room. Yeah, I mean, I can't change the holidays, unfortunately. Would you guys be ready if you had something in November? Could you do a public hearing in mid-December? Before the whole week, before the holidays? The meeting in December 2nd and December 16th of the meetings. We can always redo the meeting schedule, too, if we had to. You could make a special meeting that's a public hearing, right? And that doesn't have to be a planning board meeting. We could also do December 30th, which is a Tuesday. I think December 31st is, I think, New Year's Eve is on Monday. So we'll figure out from there, which will be as fast blows open. Thank you. Paul?
Yes, thank you for this information. I really wasn't aware of this. I'm pleased to see this happen. My question is, as you, I'm sure, are aware, the current conference committee reconciling the House and Senate energy affordability bills has in it a whole set of provisions that relate to automatic permitting of solar, interconnection rights, all sorts of things. Are those completely... Separate from this zoning considerations? Or if there was an energy affordability bill by the deadline, January 5th, do you see any possibility of needing further revisions as a result of that? Right now, we've been operating on the assumption that they are separate, but I can follow up and check. Emma, do you have more insights or thoughts on this? No, I think that's right. I would think they would be separate because you're really only concerned about placement, right? Yes. Yeah. Any other questions or comments from the committee, planning board members, members of the public, anybody else? No, this has been helpful. I thank you for coming to give an overview. I know that we weren't going to present a whole big discussion about what we want to kick off. We need to start somewhere to kick off the process for this. And if there's any comments that you have from the ECC side, feel free to reach out to me. And I am also the local. Government representative for solar projects. So any kind of big solar projects would go through my office and then go from there. Yeah, I think we'd be ready to the MAPC getting into the planning board to review things. If you give us like a week to review something, we don't need a meeting. We can have individuals review it and forward comments. We have a couple of more solar experts on the permitting side who have... Been on the development side of things and on the financing side, so I think we want to make sure we kind of think about the use case and how things work. The town's protective of its resources and that certainly for us, the committee is encouraging more solar. Given the price of land in Wayland, I don't anticipate a lot of big solar development coming our way. That said, I will say Sudbury, we were in touch with the Sudbury Sustainability Manager the other day. I know they're drafting their own bylaw. I told them you guys are helping us. Eric Sims is the sustainability manager, but he actually lives in Wayland. So I told them that he could reach out to you guys. I know they're drafting theirs and they're in the part where they're going to all their committees. They actually have language already. So I don't know. You guys might want to touch base with them. Thank you for spreading the word. I've been trying really hard to get as many institalities. Yeah, no problem. Okay, any further comments or questions? I appreciate Robert and Olivia trying to coordinate this. Then we sort of, as long as we can be apprised of the schedule and what you're doing and have opportunities to provide input, we'd love to do that and we'll be as timely as possible and certainly would suggest if you can hit like a mid-December public meeting, that would be. The best, because there's a 10-day period where you'll be blacked out for holidays, and then, as Annette says, you're getting too close. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you. And you're welcome to stay, unless the rest of our meeting, but I suspect you have better things to do. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next. This is our day of briefing of all kinds of things that are going on in town. Next, we're going to hear from Fire Chief Neil McPherson on the status of drafting the hazard mitigation plan for Wayland. And I was at the meeting in town, Neil, where you guys presented with your consultants what they were doing and asked for input. Olivia was there for part of that time. I know Jeanneau was there because she gave public comment right after me. The reason I thought it'd be good for them to come is we're revising our camp. And part of the camp had some sections around resiliency and preparedness. And I really would prefer that Wayland don't end up with two plans that are kind of fighting each other. We should figure out what belongs in their plan, what's in our plan, and we can have input there. Neil, to turn it over to you, I mean, for, I think we've given you half an hour to kind of talk about where you are in the process and how people can engage. Tom, this directly impacts some of the sections that you had written, obviously, in our earlier version. If we could, in my own view, if we could move some of those out of ours and move it into this other one, then they all rest in the right place and we can reference it in our plan, but not have duplicative language. But that's one. Woman's fault. Over to you, Neil. Okay. So can you hear me okay? Fantastic. All right. Awesome. So I want to thank people who attended the meeting and so far who have provided feedback. All right. As you know, like one of the primary drivers of the hazard mitigation plan is our ability to get grants. And mitigation grants. And that's part of the Disaster Mitigation Act, right? And then the Hazard Mitigation Plan is doing three things. It's identifying natural hazards, accessing our vulnerability, and outlining mitigation actions to reduce risk. So I don't know if people are aware, but the draft of this plan is available on the town website. All right. It's available under News and Announcements. Now, it is 300 pages. So I want to forewarn you, there is a lot of paper associated with it. And that's why we did not print off a lot of copies so that people could look at that. There is a review period right now. So this is a draft. And the review period is from October 13th through October 27th. So if you're feeling that you have extra time and you'd like to go through all 300 and something pages, it is a lot of information. But I just want to, again, emphasize that if you have feedback for the plan, you have until October 27th to provide us with that feedback, all right? There is a form that you can fill out if you'd like relative to the feedback that just helps us understand what part of the plan. So if you can reference, for example, pages or specific elements that you think should be updated versus general comments, that would be very helpful. And you're supposed to send that back to me, firechief at wayland.ma.us. When the review period ends, we're going to make one quick question. I think, Olivia, what would be helpful for the committee if you and Neil, as a follow-up to this meeting, send a link to the plan, a link to the forms, just to make it easy for committee members to provide input. That would be super helpful. Yep, I can do that. No problem. Great. Thank you. So when the review period ends, what we're going to end up doing is we're going to go ahead and we are going to take all of the comments and we're going to look at the comments and the working group is going to look at the plan and see where those comments would fit and or where appropriate changes could or should be made, right? And after that final review is done with feedback, We are going to send a draft to MEMA and then it goes to FEMA for a review. All right. After MEMA and FEMA do their review, they send it back to us for comments. And then the town has to go ahead at a select board meeting and adopt this plan. So high level the mechanics of what we're doing. The important part is there is a draft plan. It's available for review. We have a window from October 13th through October 27th to get feedback to us in writing relative to your comments. Now, I don't know if anybody has actually taken the time to review this plan. I don't know if people have. I know there's a lot of information. So you can see that there is different components of information about the town. It starts talking about the natural hazards we have. It talks about the vulnerabilities and outlines some of the mitigation actions to reduce risks. So in terms of coordination, this is a high-level plan. I was at the select board meeting last night. They asked, does this plan have specific workflows or guidance as to how we're going to respond? And the answer is no. This is supposed to identify the natural hazards and where we have the greatest vulnerabilities. Characterize some broad actions that we can take to mitigate that risk. And the really important part is this opens the door for federal and state funding, as I mentioned earlier. If we don't have this plan and this plan is not in place, then we are ineligible as part of the Disaster Mitigation Act to seek funds to solve some of those natural hazards and to reduce that risk. In the plan, there's a lot of different... Hazards and vulnerabilities. And I think the hard part has been trying to quantify what the hazards and vulnerabilities would be and then rank those vulnerabilities and then come up with some meaningful steps, although they are broad steps, to address them. So if people have looked at the plan, you can see that, you know, they've highlighted some of the hazards. A lot of them are water-related. If you ask me as the Emergency Management Director, what I think some of the biggest hazards that we face, a lot of them are climate and water-related, as we've seen, and storm-related, although there is a lot of different hazards that we face. So you'll see a lot of the, shall we say, The hazards profiled were flood, flood for flood, for flood precipitation and hurricanes. So I'm going to stop there for a second and ask if people have questions relative to what I've said so far, because I know I threw a whole bunch of information at you. Comment, I guess. I've skimmed the plan so far. As you know, Neil, I was out of the country when that hearing happened. But when I got back, I did. Yes, I found it on the town website and I skimmed it. I count over 500 pages in my online copy. A lot of it seems to be boilerplate almost. Talks over and over about every conceivable possible or incredibly unlikely hazards like earthquake. You know, we don't get earthquakes in this or any significant one anyway. But the biggest one we all know is flooding. I don't know if you're aware, but the CONCOM is having a hearing right now on the proposed rail trail over the river. And I am trying to get involved in that to try to do some flood mitigation as a part of that. of that plan. I didn't see anything in the draft explicitly relating to the river obstructions that are at issue. I think that's, and as much as, again, we all agree that flooding is the primary risk in Wayland, seems like that's a significant issue. Also, I found it weird that it talked a lot about what's happened in the last 10 years. Yet it also references, you know, 100-year and 500-year flood risks. So that didn't seem to me to make a lot of sense. Who cares what happened in the last 10 years? It's what could happen, what's a significant risk of happening, you know, in the next 10 years. And that involves what's happened in the last 100 years. So, comments. Anyway, yeah, it's a lot of stuff. I'm going to hopefully make some comments before the deadline. And you can see, Tom, there was a lot of information about the dams, right, and obviously the other feeds and rivers that come into Wayland. And as we probably both agree, well, there is obstacles in the rivers that Wayland is very much impacted. By the rivers upstream, downstream, and how they come in through Wayland. So there was a lot of information about the various things, which I think is, from my opinion, very relevant to the conversation about controlling the rivers and the flows. So while I appreciate some was boilerplate, to me, when we look at waters. And especially the Sudbury River and some of the rivers we have in these waterways, I thought that was very valuable information. And I'm very pleased with Snakebrook Dam in the sense that we're now going to solve what I consider to be one of the biggest hazards that we had before, which was Snakebrook Dam, which was overtopped once before by a couple inches in one of the storms. And now we're going to have a mechanism, right, to go ahead and better control water levels there. And I hope that as we look at these things and these challenges. That this can be used to help us solve some of those other problems and then seek federal funding to help us pay for those additional changes. And that's really, to me, this is the pipeline to help us identify and open up the doorway for funding to solve some of the other obstacles and things that we are facing relative to the water and the rivers. By the way, I don't know if everybody's aware of this, but historically, for the last 320-something years, one of the major contributors to our flooding risks in Wayland has been the Bilrica Dam. And it's looking extremely likely that that will come down next year. Had to involve some Middlesex Superior Court legal threats against the Billerica Historic District Commission. But it really looks like that's going to happen. So that is one of the two major human contributors to flooding in the river, along with all the obstructions being here. And as you know, that the plan also called out when it comes to new growth. And exposures in floodplain areas. Yes. That the town has done a good job in the flood, national flood program has helped us in terms of avoiding additional exposure in some of these susceptible areas. I think that was called out. I don't recall what page it was, but that was called out. And I think that's a very important point that is the town looks at this. OK, we have a little bit of a challenge, but we don't want to complicate it and worsen the challenge that we face today. Yeah, the concom has been doing a great job for over 50 years. Yeah. All right, Tom, I'm hoping you'll use their form because Neil can take these comments, but my guess is they're all going to a consultant. And when they go through the form process, it's more likely they're going to get dealt with. But that said, Paul? Yes, just a couple of procedural questions. Is there a particular time frame by which we have to have something in front of FEMA? Is there something driving the schedule here? So there is. So this plan is supposed to be updated every five years. So we're coming up on the expiration of the five years for the plan. We have notified FEMA and MIMA that we're working on this plan. So there's a little bit of a grace period. But if we don't have a plan completed, then we are technically ineligible. To get federal grants. And we recently got grant funding for the Snakebrook Dam. I believe that was $1.8 million. So in the future, if we had a project and we don't have our plan updated, you know, that would be a problem for us. Our goal is to make sure we get this plan completed as close to five years so that we can continue requesting grants in the next cycle of FEMA and MEMA. When is the official five-year mark? Do you know? I don't off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Are there model plans from other towns that have proved to be very successful in getting grant money or ones that have been unsuccessful in terms of do you have any sort of rubrics to go by in terms of what to include and what to leave out that is more or less likely to make it funding favorable? So one of the things that we've done is we've used a consultant to help us with this plan. Because as you can imagine, this is a tremendous amount of work on top of already busy work schedules. And the firm that we picked has done many plans for many other communities. So as part of the selection process, we looked at a bunch of the plans they did and the number of times things got kicked back by MIMA and FEMA because they understand the format. And that's one of the reasons that we picked the firm that we did because of their understanding of what is required. And then the second part is they understand that they help us take the information that we have and fit it into that format. And I think part of the practice becomes writing it in a fashion where it covers potential areas where you're going to seek funding in the future. I just used the example last time we mentioned Snakebroke Dam. In this plan, there's a lot of mention about waterways. So as it was just brought up before, if we have concerns in waterways, this is identifying you as a mitigation plan. If we want to go for the flood grant, we can do so because a lot of that is identified. Can Neil freeze for you guys? Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm just curious about that. I'm not familiar with this topic. Hello? Hello? Ellen, we can hear you. Maybe it's on your end, but I can hear Neil. Okay. Do you want to join, leave and come back? Nope, I just turned my camera off. Oh, okay, perfect. All right. Sorry, guys, thank you. No other questions that you might have? Yeah, I have one. When I listened to the presentation, you know, there were two big issues, flooding and extreme heat were kind of the two big ones that came up. And so I think in terms of intersectionality with the Energy and Climate Committee. The two things I would like to see maybe be in there because there would be if there. You're looking for FEMA money. We're looking for anybody's money, right, at this committee. And we've been successful. But the two things I've thought about is, as you know, we have solar at the middle school, and it is our shelter. And we have it wired, Neil, that when the power goes down, the solar can power certain circuits at the middle school, but we have no battery. And we've done a study to size a battery there. We have a plan. So if this plan could note that That we have solar and that if we could get a battery that would provide that would make that solar backup at the middle school more reliable and more available. This has been a long term plan from the committee. I'll say my second one and then John's back on the train. He can add to this. And the second point is around extreme heat. Not all of our schools have air conditioning. We are in the process of trying to get heat pumps in all our schools to get off gas and use more electricity. With heat pumps comes AC. But that is, when we think about extreme heat, There are not that many things, you know, the town's going to do for everybody's houses, but we, sorry, we could do something for our schools. So to the extent the plan could note that situation and note that the town would be, that this would be part of our plan to provide cooling in our educational settings. Those were the two that jumped out at me. Great, great points. Okay, so I'll do the form too, but since I'm talking to you. No, that's very true. Sorry, if I could just jump in quick. All the schools do have cooling. It's just, it's not very functional, but all of the schools do, like I are ducted and do have cooling. It's just very dated. So maybe, you know, noting that it's there, but it's not functional is important, just so you know. Thank you, Olivia. So we could say that we need to improve the cooling in our schools, which are not currently meeting heating degree day loads is the way I would frame it. You know, we're having more, I mean, cooling degree days, we're having more days that require cooling. So if you want to, you know, we're just the systems are not keeping up with the demand that we have. So, Olivia, is it fair to say, I mean, is that accurate if I put down also non-functioning or non-functional as well? Because I think that's a pretty aggressive term that, you know, highlights a dire... And that is a little bit different than like the cooling degree and unable to keep up for cooling degrees because do the systems just barely work or is it just at high heat days that we're struggling? Because those are two different animals. The high school is obviously like our new building. So that one is decent. But the elementary schools, I would say, are, you know, close to non-functional. They're very outdated. Yeah. And then the middle school is like. A hot mess. So we're actually applying for some climate leaders grant, which we're going to try to do HVAC upgrades there. But don't, you know, don't not say that the middle school is like by far the worst. And then elementary schools are equally as bad. Okay. I think you could say they're not functioning so that many or many classrooms are not getting sufficient cooling. Yep. Yep, and that's very important, obviously. Yeah, so those two are the one I want to flag. I'll let Tom and others who know way more about flooding than me. But that would set us up for some potential funding, Neil. Yep. Let me ask one more thing about flooding. Neil, my perception is that For the state, as contrasted right now to the federal, for the state, emphasizing the climate change elements of risks is a good thing because there's a lot of energy in the state around dealing with climate change. And one fundamental issue that impacts Weyland, I mean everybody, but Weyland in particular, is the stalling of the jet stream over us and the creation of multiple storms in a short period. That's what happened in 2010. That's what happened in 2015 as well, but that was earlier in the year. That's when we had the records of snow in eastern Mass. But that phenomenon is Is incredibly important. It's absolutely a climate change phenomenon. Should that be talked about, explained in this, in your plan? So I know that on page 124, one of the statistics that I thought was important is that the precipitation will increase by 6 to 14 percent. And they're seeing that trend has manifested itself in terms of making the current situation worse. But if you think there's other ways that we can add to that. Yeah, that's really not the essence of it. The essence of it is when you get, for example, in 2010, we had a big rainstorm in the middle of March. And we had another one a week later. And then we had another one a week later. And it was each of them. Piling on top of the last one in that short period of time that created the flooding. And in 2015, again, the snowstorm, we had no snow until, I don't know, the middle of February or something. And then all of a sudden it was one snowstorm after another and it wound up. Being a record. That phenomenon is the real issue. It's not just having 16% more or greater. So you're saying frequency is a more frequent occurrence. It's concentrated. They're more frequent and they're coming in these concentrated doses that sort of amplify and don't give communities a chance to recover. Yep. It's not only communities, it doesn't give the river a chance to river. Right, right. That's what I meant by communities. Jeanne? Yeah. So, I mean, technically, I mean, the climate change effect is, it's increasing the intensity of extreme events. And it's also, I mean, sometimes it's not so much that they're more frequent, it's that they're unexpected. And you know what? Tom is describing is the pattern is not something which is informed by the past. So when you have multiple events in rapid succession, that is not something that has happened in the past. However, in the context of our current understanding of climate change, that tells us it is something which we can expect more of the unexpected in the future. And for rainfall intensification, we have a lot of information which generally shows the northeast of the United States as the part of the country which is already experiencing the greatest rainfall intensification. And that rainfall intensification... Generates what we call flash flooding. Flash flooding is the most difficult flooding to forecast, but in anticipation, we can make infrastructure improvements over time that will protect us. Are you reviewing the plan, Janelle? I, like you, I have skimmed it. I thought a lot of it was boilerplate, and I want to try to give input on Wayland-specific issues. The one that I'd like to add that hasn't been mentioned yet is fire. And the fire risk is it's a combination of factors. It's that we have, as Ellen mentioned, we have more hot days, hot nights. We're having more intense periods of heat, which contribute to drought. And the summer drought is both more intense and it's extending. At the same time as the whole understory in the forest has been changing over the last 30 years. So when you have that dry understory, that's part of, you know, what we've learned in California, what we've learned in Canada. That is just a, it's just a tinderbox waiting for a match. And generally fires are human caused. We are, you know, at risk of lightning strikes, but the fire risk means that We really need to be thinking about access into our conservation areas. And that's something to talk with Linda about. Sure.
All right. Any other comments for Neil, who I appreciate coming to our meeting? So, Tom, I'm hoping you'll fill out those forms. You know, as you know, you will provide comment. I've given you the oral comment. I'll try to do those forms. But those two items, I think, Neil. And we're happy, Olivia, can give you more details about the school situation. John, we've had a whole, like, study done, which you can reference on battery feasibility at the middle school. So... John can send that study over to you. You can reference it, you know, that the town has actually already planned out what it would do and is ready to, you know, with funding, pursue that. Operative word with funding. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, any further thoughts for Neil? I really appreciate it. We'll try to make your deadline. So John, action item for you to get something to Neil, Olivia, maybe work with Neil on this language and Tom and I will make sure to do the forms. You know, Paul, if you want to take a look at if you have any bandwidth to anybody else. Okay. Great. Thank you. Your excuse for dinner. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. I just want to say, I think you get an A plus for keeping us on time this far. All right. Over to you, Olivia. All right. Yes, I am also pleasantly surprised with us being on time. That's great. So I was just going to talk about our green communities project status. So as you all remember, we were awarded green communities funding. We are in the current process of installing LED lighting upgrades in the town building and in the library. So the contractors have been here on and off throughout the past week. So they're almost done, which is exciting. Mark Hebert ordered their Not Emergency Pursuit Vehicle, and it's going to come in, I think, in March. Our facility's, you know, fully electric work van has been ordered and should be here in December. So exciting things on the horizon with green communities. And are there any questions on that before I move forward? I had one. I always feel like we need to do a good job of communicating to the public what's going on. So when we get these vehicles or when you have a picture of at least one of them, this is ripe for an article for the Wayland Post. Don't you think, Steve? I think this is ripe. So when I was slightly distracted there, Olivia, something coming in. When do you think the vehicles will arrive? They're going to come in at different times. The facilities one, I believe, is December, and I think police is like March. All right, let's try and do it in December. And then you probably have a picture of what the police one will look like. We can get a stock photo of the vehicle. We don't need the actual one in Wayland. But Steve, you want to try and work? You've offered before. I'd love to get your help. Work with Olivia on an article for this. I'm happy to. Olivia, whatever info you have now, if you can send that along to me, that would be great. At least I can scope it out and present it to the post. Editors in a way that they can understand it. Right. I think the press release is probably the best thing that we sent out on winning the award. And then, Steve, I would write it with a quote from the police chief who's been very supportive, saying, we're super excited about this vehicle, blah, blah, blah. And you could say, here's the thing. We'll have a picture of the actual vehicle. We could run this in December or early January. Yeah, no, definitely. I'll reach out to you, Steve, with, like, the specs of both vehicles and more information. Sounds good. Yeah. And the press release of where all the money is going, Steve, because not all vehicles, right? Yes. Yep. Okay. And then... So that's kind of where that's at. We just have the LED lighting upgrades currently going into the two buildings. Vehicles on order. So that was where all that money, you know, was going for green communities. Our climate leader funding application status, we're still working with Amoresco. By the end of October, they're supposed to have, you know, a drafted scope for us. We have to submit to DOER a notice of intent to apply for the February Climate Leaders Funding. It's due in November, just so they know that they're receiving an application from Wayland and kind of what our thoughts are and like how much we're asking for. Sorry, I got lost there. You said February and November. Sorry, I'm not following. Okay, so the Climate Leaders Funding application is due in February. In November to DOER, we have to submit a notice of intent. Just so they know, you know, who's asking for what. I thought you were talking about the following number. Oh, no, sorry. So, November 2026, you say, we're going to apply, we want to apply in February 2027. Right, right. So end of October, we're working with Amaresco. They're supposed to send us the specs and their plans so we can gather our information for the NOI Notice of Intent that's due in November. So waiting to hear back from them. Should be hearing back from them soon because we're nearing the end of October already. But we're still going to be focusing on HVAC upgrades in the middle school. That's the main plan. And this has to be deharmonization, so it's obviously stuff getting us off of gas onto electric. Yes, yes. I believe the plan is heat pumps outside of classrooms. I'm not sure if there are other. The middle school just had two boilers, not two, several boilers put into the basement, so we're not going to be getting rid of the boilers. But, yeah. Well, it'd be good for the committee when you hear from Amoresco on what they're proposing to do. It'd be great if maybe Amoresco could join one of our meetings saying, here's what we're thinking for this. That'd be great, Olivia. Yeah, no, I agree. I think once they get us more information, because honestly, right now we haven't heard much from them from more than what I'm telling you. So I think once we have a better outline of what our notice of intent is going to look like, we can have a representative come and they can give you more information. I mean, probably would line up with our next meeting so I can be in touch with them. And then, oh, so I was gonna, this isn't on the agenda because it's kind of. Development as of this week. Ellen had reached out to me about a Solarize campaign with several other Metro West towns that are being led by their sustainability managers and coordinators. Lexington and Newton are kind of like heading this charge. So they're putting out an RFQ for the municipalities that are interested. And Wayland got approval from the Select Board and Michael McCall to be on the RFQ to join this Solarize campaign. Oh, that's awesome. This is where Jillian reached out and said, hey, do you guys know about this? And I was like, I don't know anything about it. Maybe Olivia does. So you already reached out to Newton. That's great. And they were okay, including us. Yep. Caroline Weiss is very sweet. I'm friendly with her. So she was really eager and happy to have us on board. So we are going to be on the RFQ. But Michael kind of said tentatively, once we find out who's going to be vetting the solar installers, then the select board will be a little more involved and we'll vote if we want to continue with the process or not. But being on the RFQ is the first step. And last time around, John was our representative to vet the installers. Okay. So I don't know if he would have bandwidth again, or maybe, you know, it's not at the right time. It's the right time of year, Bill could do it or Paul. We have enough people from this committee who could probably join a multi-town vetting effort of solar installers. So I think we've done that before without from... From town residents and not town staff, Olivia. So it would not be a staff burden. Yeah, okay. I'll be in touch when I hear, you know, a little more about that. I think the plan is for the RFQ to go out like early next week, but I'm not entirely sure of the date. So I'll keep you guys in the loop with that. Great. Tom, did you have a question? Yeah. So does that have to be only for solar? I mean, I think we want to have a similar effort for heat pumps. Because what I hear from people over and over, how do I find an installer I can trust? And, you know, that's what you accomplish. This is just a solarized for solar. So let's do this. We could talk about it. That's been true. People have tried heat smart kinds of things like solar arrays and they have not worked as well because of the systems are so different. So we could talk about that more in another meeting. We have this sort of jam-packed meeting tonight. Yeah, okay. Hand up by somebody. Who is that? Is that John? Who is that? It says energy and climate. If your hands up, go ahead and unmute yourself and talk. Yeah. Hi, Olivia. Just a quick question. Did it include batteries? Or what was their decision not to include batteries? I believe it did include batteries. I can confirm that. But yes, I do think they were also a part of the RFQ. Yes. Thank you, Olivia. Great. Thanks for reaching out so quickly. That's great. Yeah, I'm excited. I think it'll be good. And then the last thing that I had on my list was reviewing our total funds and rebates that we received as, you know, a Sustainability Committee Department. Do you want me to share my screen, Ellen, or just like rattle off stuff? No, no, share screen. So remember, this was, we're always trying to show to the select board in the town. That we bring in resources, both grant funds and we access rebate funds. So, Bill, this also came from you saying, like, let's make sure we're sharing this with the FinCom. So, Bill, I'd like you to particularly look at what Olivia shares here. I wrote the report from the committee for the town and included the rebates and grants, but that's in the annual. Oh, that's what you're highlighting. Yeah. So this is already posted or will be posted to the town. If you can send it to me, I can't read the prints too small on the screen, but just send it to me. Yep, I'll send this to everybody. So total funding received last year was over $200,000, Bill. That's the bottom line. You know, it's about half grants and half incentives and rebates. That's the headline. Great, good. All right, so it's in the report that's already our report to the committee, which I wrote, and I always ask our Town staff person to fill in these numbers. I do think it's also, Olivia could probably give you, send you this and also like, since the beginning of time, I know we've brought in probably 1.4 million in grant funds, Bill, when I add it all up. But Olivia probably has a running total on that. But yeah, send this along. And I think this, we could think about... You know, Steve, when you write the article, this is the $100,000 grant. That's what's listed here. But you could also note some of these things, like in addition to the grant, the committee and sustainability staff have secured utility rebates and incentives and, you know, this grant and one other smaller grant. So let's be sure to always be publicizing this. All right. And I'll send this to the committee, and then I'll also send the, I can send the record of all the funding we've received to everyone, too. Neil, did you have something? I just had a quick question. Maybe it's the moment to ask whether any of the rebate and incentives that were on projects that were not funded with town capital money. Since those are the ones that were to be attributed to the whatever we named that slush fund. Don't call it a slush fund. It's not that. The energy fund. I think I asked you that question. I asked Mike that question before. Do you know what these were all barring or anywhere used with free cash and whether these funds went to that fund, Olivia? I think they're in, I think they are in that fund, but let me ask Mike tomorrow and confirm because I don't really know off the top of my head. So let me get back to you on that. And then just send a follow-up email to the committee on that. That'd be great. That'd be great. Thanks. All right. Any other questions for Olivia? All right. We're over to me. Seven minutes ahead of schedule. So, first of all, big, big thanks to Paul Dale for doing just a swashbackling good job on the have a slice, get energy advice. I was there. John was there. Paul was there. Was anybody else? I can't remember. Steve, are you? Steve, briefly, was at the beginning, but had a conflict. Yeah, I was there for a while, had a couple of conversations, but had to leave. So it was a great event. We had 45 people in attendance. We did an evaluation. So first of all, our outreach channels are what Energize Wayland usually use. It's in the newsletter. Olivia got it in the town newsletter. And then we tried this thing. We asked our volunteers in Energize Wayland to send an email to 10 or 15 friends, not just like dear friends, but more like dear Steve, you know, dear Bill. Here's something I think you might find interesting. Maybe I haven't a spreadsheet, but at least five or six or seven, like a not insignificant number of people came because of that direct friend outreach. So we call those people now our clean energy ambassadors and we can use them. I also asked you guys to do that as committee members. I don't know if any of you did, but it really took less than eight minutes. I know I had a standard email. I thought of 10 people in Wayland. I was like, you know. Dear Shirley, blah, blah, blah. So I think when we're having other events we really want to promote, I really would love to ask all of your help in doing that because we saw some results from it. The evaluation, and we had an A-frame up in front of Stop and Shop. The one at the council aging was not very effective, I think. We have to work with them on how to advertise. We did eventually get it on their banner board when you walked in. Stop and Shop was more than happy to put something out in front. So something to remember for the future. The manager there was great. I talked to him. So we did an evaluation. 100% of the people who attended said they learned something. And about 65% said they were ready to take a next step. We got about eight to 10 heat pump coaching requests out of that specific meeting. So of the 45, I'd say eight of them were us, right? They were... Clean Energy Coat. They were heat pump coaches. We had our two solar coaches there. We also had Abode there talking about tabling on rebates and homeworks was there. I don't know, Olivia, how many they signed up for an energy audit. It'd be great if you got that info from them for our next meeting. Like, it'd be great to just get the dashboard for our next meeting, how many they're signing up. So that's pretty in line with what we see in other events. Like two-thirds of the people, if we have a great event, feel like they're ready to take a next step. So that was great. What was really great was the letter Paul and I worked on went out from the town. Hopefully some of you got it. Some people didn't seem to get it. Did you guys get the letter from the town about heat bumps? Okay, that has resulted in another 12 heat pump coaching requests. We are up to about 20 new heat pump coaching requests in the last three weeks. So our heat pump coaches are getting a little overwhelmed. Ann Harris is managing this, may reach out to some other Heat Smart Alliance folks to help us. But that's fantastic. That's better than like any other community I know to, you know, targeted outreach, getting a bunch of requests for coaching. And then a bunch of people are just going to do it without coaching. I had an email from someone who wanted a coaching request, but when we actually got into it with her, she said, no, no, I think I'm good. So the letter was just kind of a nudge. So Paul, I think it had an impact, Paul, which is... Great to hear. So that's my update on that. Paul, do you want to say anything else? Oh, just a brief note. I've taken on a bunch of new heat pump coaching requests. I've had three meetings in the last day or so. All of them are a result of the letter. So that's how they... Got into getting a coach. Yep. Yeah. The letter, like I have to say, is one of the best things we did was negotiating in our CCA contract that the supplier would fund the letter. That was like a really good idea that we had. I don't know any other communities done that. And I think the letter was effective, Paul. We worked hard on it and did a lot of iterations. And I think it came out pretty well. I also, sorry, I want to add, I had a couple of residents call me about the letter and said it was helpful. And I, you know, gave Anne their information too. So it definitely was a success. Great. And we'll add all of those emails to the Energize Wayland newsletter list so those people can continue to, you know, get information. The Energize Wayland newsletter list is probably up to about 900 right now. So that's great. The, there was, I registered, but I couldn't attend. We, through the plug-in campaign, you know, we participate with four other towns in this. Mass Energize helps us. It was on new technologies. Did anyone go to that one? On Thursday last week? That had over 120 people registered. And when I check last, like, 18 people from Wayland. So that was about balcony solar unit heat pumps. And battery stuff. So there's a lot of interest in kind of new technologies. And it's great is that we can advertise these and we don't actually have to put them on. We just have to promote them. The one that I really want to talk about is on November. What is it? November 12th. I think it's a little bit. Through the plugin campaign. We got connected with building BEA, building electrification accelerator, some of you know, and there was sort of an interest in doing more with multifamily owners, which was part of the plug-in commitments with MAPC money. So this is again a situation where we've gotten somebody else to do the content and we just have to promote. So BE Plus has a mass, I'm really going to get into the jargon here, has a mass CEC grant to do outreach to multifamily owners. They've focused on Cambridge and Boston, which has Birdo, you know, the benchmarking rule. And if you're over a certain. BTUs per square foot per heating degree day. You got to do something. But they were interested in running a workshop for multifamily owners because we said we can get the word out. So Wayland is actually going to host it. Acton was, Andrea, this wonderful sustainability manager in Acton, who's done a lot with multifamily and condos, really wanted to do this. We were interested. We convinced her Acton was not geographically. Central. So Olivia was able to get us a room in the large hearing room. And this is being promoted in Sudbury, Wayland, Acton, I hope, Natick. I know Lexington and Wells, a bunch of other communities are also promoting it. We can hold up to 60 property owners. Olivia, you sent a letter out. We had a draft template letter. You sent it to about, what, 28, you said? Yeah, 30 people. 30 owners. I just send an email to condo board. Members and presidents with the letter alerting them to it. So it'll be a two-hour workshop followed by a lunch. They'll do some case studies that will show what multifamily owners did, including condos, to save energy and come up with like a multi-year plan, how you think about your property over time. And then what are the incentives you can access and what's the technical assistance you can access. So I think there will be some breakout groups of Multifamily owners who are condos and some that are not condos. So it's happening in Wayland. We are participating. And it's a benefit we're getting being part of the plug-in campaign that mass energizes running. And that ends the end of December. All the communities part of plug-in, Natick, Sudbury, Wayland, Acton. Ashland have said they want to continue to collaborate so that we're each not running our own little event where someone can organize one and we can promote it across communities. We did promote the Have a Slice in Sudbury and I think we had about four people come from Sudbury. I'm personally feeling a little tired with all these events that we've done. And the Wayland Festival is great. We talked to lots of people. Thank you for those who volunteered to staff our table. Paul was there, I know. Steven Lin helped out and lots of great conversations. And the Girl Scouts would like to do something with us. So I'm in communication with the Girl Scouts. So that is my update. Any questions? I think we should say Yahoo, first of all. I'm not understanding about this multifamily. I've dealt with one apartment situation, but that was individually, it had an individual heat pump. Are there apartments in Wayland that are centrally? Served by HVAC systems? Or what are we talking about here? Well, the multifamily, most of them don't have common spaces. They mostly have heat bumps in their own units. But there have been some condos that have successfully done something like, since a lot of the condos are the same, doing a big buy where they can, you know, go out to an installer and say, hey, you know, sorry, I'm changing a button here. Say, this is what we need. These are a number of owners interested. I think some of these owners are, we're also going to talk about EV rebates. There's some interest in, you know, putting EVs on the properties. In Wayland, it's just condos and they're minimal common spaces. So I don't think... Wayland has as many multifamily owners that fit the target, but they will talk to condo. There's a condo act and it took quite a while and I don't think they had much common space and they successfully did a lot of work in their individual condos. So we'll see. Okay. Okay. I mean, the one that I dealt with, each one. Own, own their condos and each one dealt with their HVAC individually and in principle it wasn't, I mean physically it was different from a house but you know in principle in terms of dealing with coaching it really wasn't different. Yep. But I think the condos can do something like offer a big buy, say. Oh, yeah. We all look the same. We can get maybe a better price. And if we all kind of do it the same time and how people... So those are the conversations that might be of interest. And sometimes there's some shared attic spaces in some of these condos that cut across. So we'll see what they have to say. But anyway, I feel like we're finally doing something on multifamily, which we haven't really done. So that was part of our intention. So that's what I've got. I'm going to try and call Gene because I know, oh, I don't have Gene. All right. So I think any other questions? I'm personally feeling a little burnt out because between there have probably been four events that I've been promoting and I'm just, I need a breather. So that's just me. So I guess we're ahead of schedule to talk about the Climate Action Plan. Nobody has Jean Milburn's cell phone sheet. Do we want to maybe go back to the diversity, equity, inclusion stuff while we wait? No, I don't think so. I think we're good to go. We could just end earlier, so it's okay. Okay. So let's just talk about it in general. Bill, did Bill go away? Bill, are you still with us? Yeah, he is. So, Bill, you were leading the discussion last time. I fear we've made no progress since our last discussion. So, you know, still would like to hand over to you, Neil. Think about, I think, when we last left, people with their sections presented. Olivia, I think, sent around two new climate action plans. Natick just redid theirs, and it's posted on their website. Jillian said we can look at that. The only thing I'm going to say about is, I think, in terms of getting input from people, we should go where people are, not have our own event. But I think we're a little bit stalled out here.
Bill, I'm going to hand it over to you to help us think. Okay, well, like I said, I don't have anything other than I just wanted to see how things were going. So it sounds like we're not making much progress at this point. Well, what was the intention? People who had their sections, looked at them, kind of gave an update on where we are. So I think the next step was for each. I think people were reasonably on board with like. Not making this a really long plan, but at least trying to come up with like a top 10. So I think you had said to people in each of their sections, come back with what you think your top four or five things are, right? And I don't think anyone's done that. Yeah, I don't remember how we left it. But yeah, I know, you know, each person who wrote a chapter is assigned the responsibility to update that chapter. Yeah, I mean, I think keeping it short and sort of bullet points, four or five items, you know, would be good. So maybe we could do that by the next meeting, guys. People who had their sections could look at their sections and come up with, you know, I still like the structure of what the municipality can do and what residents can do. We might pull the resident stuff into its own section. You know what, that's a formatting question, but the people who had their sections, do you think you... Could people do that? I'm guessing we'll have a November meeting. By the November meeting, come up with your, you know, your top five things. You can have a list of things beyond your top five, but what are your top five recommendations in your section? Are you looking for actual text to that section or just bullet point sound? I think bullet point. Yeah, I think, yeah, I'm much more into having an outline than text because I think an outline is more meaningful and it's easier to put together. So, yeah, lists and outlines are good. So, I'll raise my hand briefly. I thought we had some good points came out of the last discussion that we had. In particular, I recall that John had some, I thought, really compelling points. And I'll be honest with you, I can't remember exactly what they were. I think it was about focusing on commercial. They were so good. No, they were focusing on commercial. Yes, it was focusing on commercial stuff in addition, more focus on commercial stuff because we got 13% that we haven't done anything about in that regard. So I thought that was it. A critically important comment. You got another one, though, John. You got a second one. I think I remember what it was. It was kind of like, John, you were saying. Is it really worth us trying to do any more municipal solar installations? Like, is the juice worth the squeeze? Wasn't that it, John? Yeah, there was something like that. In some respects, it's a provocative question, so it's hard to say, oh, we're done here. But if we look at it from the perspective of bandwidth, what do we focus our energies on? Yeah, but I think the counterpoint was we have not done anything about batteries. Yeah, and that's... I can pull up the list that circulated with my comments. I wrote them down just to kind of make... Oh, you wrote them down. Excellent. I did look at the meeting minutes that Olivia put out, and I mean, very frankly, I didn't see these kind of remarks in it. And I was at the meeting, I confess, I was relying on having people's comments more accessible. What? But Olivia, there were those flip charts I was taking notes on. Do your meeting minutes not reflect those bullets from those flip chart pieces of paper? Honestly, I thought that I had, but I can go back and add, in the past I've been told to be more brief, so I guess a little more direction with the notes is important. Do you want more information or do you want less? Is there a transcript to the meeting? It's not more or less in general. In this case, we're trying to ask ourselves, what do we want to do with this report? So those were some big bullets, like, yes, we'd like to have a section. That's like our top 10. That's an aspiration, right? There was this focus more on commercial. There was, I think, John's question, like, is it a good use of our time to go after these big municipal PPA projects? Because they take a lot of effort. But you should go back to those. Do you still have those flip charts? Because we're relying on you and I didn't take them. Yeah, I can. What I'll do is I'll send everyone a big email tomorrow like I do, and I'll outline what we outlined from the last meeting. I mean, if you want to, if you just want to take a poor man's way out, just scan the freaking flip charts and email that. That would be fine. Take it on your phone. Just go. Just photo and, you know, that would be good. To me, personally, that would be important to me taking the next step. To have that information available, the result of the last discussion. And Ellen, if I may say, I think what we really might need at this point is an activated editor, somebody who's really going to go around and beat people with wet noodles or whatever. To do stuff. Do we have a volunteer? I'd like to unvolunteer. You do not volunteer, okay? I'm unvolunteering. That's got to be, that's got to be. Neil or Bill, either of you want to be that person just going after people to make sure we stand? Somebody has to proactively go after this, I think. I'm tempted to say I would do it, but I too am. I'm just buried right now. You've got to heat pump coach people. I've got heat pump coaching and I've got all kinds of other things that I'm engaged in, unfortunately, right now. Me too. I'm pretty buried. Neil, any willingness to just be the project managers to like, if we're seeing people come up with your top five, you know, we have a meeting like two weeks before, remind people like. So I missed like two months, you know, I just sort of checked out there. So I don't feel really up to speed to agree to do anything. However, I'm willing to look at it and tell you whether I'm willing to do something. Is there, what's the easiest place to? Look at where we stand. It's not that easy. I think what could happen is that everybody, the people who... Olivia should take pictures of the flip charts. The last thing we said was there was an email from me. It identified who had which sections. Neil, go back to the emails from me. And those people were supposed to look at their section and come back with, okay, what did we do well? What did we not do well? And what do I think we should do moving forward? And a bunch of people made slides for those. And I think Olivia has all of those, so she can flow her to all of those. Oh, yeah, yeah. Send the slides around, too. Send those to Neil. Tom did not. I don't remember if Tom did. I can't remember what Tom. Send all of those around to Neil. But then I think, Neil, what we just need to come up with is like a schedule. So for the next, if we say six months from now, we'd like to be done. With this, what does this look like? I think we're going to want some opportunities for some input from people. We've decided we're not going to hold special meetings, but we'll like go where people are, you know, like maybe at this climate thing that we agreed to do with HRDI, that committee. Some people like Phil Giudici offered to, you know, give us. Five or 10 minutes at a church service. And if people want to stay around afterwards, the Trinitarian Church can talk about it. So we can brainstorm how we might do that. But that's, we could just use some project management on this, Neil. Yeah. I don't have the time to be, you know, the only person leading it, but I can certainly, you know, pitch in. You know, I'll give it a try. If I can get all that stuff that you just described. And are these meetings recorded? So like the previous meeting, there would be a transcript? Yes, they are. And they're on Waking. Great. So maybe you could listen to the previous meeting. No, what I do is take the transcript and throw it in the chat GPT and ask it to summarize. I think the slides that people put together are pretty good. So Olivia should have all of those. But then, yeah, put it in ChatGPG and get a summary. Neil, I think that'd be a great, great way. The discussion obviously rambled on during the thing. You don't want to have to listen to all that. But yeah, use these new tools. I don't really know how to do this, so you'd be much more effective. All right, Neil, you are, I'm happy to, once he all gets dumped on you. Bill volunteered. I'm just happy to chat with you. I'll volunteer also. Okay, great, Steve. All right, so Steve and Neil together come up with like, let's just say provocatively, we'd like to be done six months. So that's November, December, January, February, March, April. By April, let's be done with this. So Neil, let's work backwards. I probably had six months in me. That's good. Right? Let's just, I mean, there's no, it's our own deadline. And Olivia, maybe you could resend to everybody the other most updated plans and a link to the plan that Nate just did. Yep, I can do that. So, and for the people on their own sections, I would encourage you to look at the other plans for what they did in your section. You know what I'm saying? Paul, nobody else has a section on. That's a different organizational structure to the Right. To the plan. Yeah. So that, but the same things, how we configure, yeah. So I'll be thinking about buildings with people. Olivia's going to think about transportation with people, and you can think about that too. So maybe at our next meeting, we can kind of think about structure a little. Yeah. Okay. So let's... Maybe if people for their sections could come back with bullet points or an outline of what you think should be in your section and be prepared to share that in one slide or two slides with the committee, we'll go from there. And you need to be informed by other plans. So John and, you know, Paul and Olivia. Tom, need to read these other plans. Is Jean on yet? Jean just texted me. I sent her an email. I don't have her phone number. I didn't have her phone number either. She texted me. I texted her. It goes to her Gmail. Let's see. She says, I'm in the meeting. Can you see me? She's here. There we go. There she is. Okay. Hey, Jean. Sorry. She's muted and video's off. I think that's on her to do. Yes. I'll send her a text. Yep, there we go. Yeah, I'm here. All right, Jean. So, sorry for our confusion. We got done early. It was good for us. So, I'll just update what I just said to the committee. We are going to update the camp. Our goal is to be done in six months. Neil and Steve have been coerced into being our project managers on this. Current plan is to take a look at the sections we did before. We have individuals who have been the leads on those sections, and last time they benchmarked those sections on kind of how we did. And at our next meeting, they're going to come forth with the suggestion of what they think in their section, transportation, buildings, clean energy, should be our priorities. Our goal in this plan is to not make it longer, but to make it shorter. And we agreed as committee that we would like to come up with like a... Kind of a top 10 list because you have 50 things in there. It's not helpful to Olivia. Like what should she focus on in a day with limited resources? So we're going to strive to have a, it may not be 10, but we're going to strive to have a very short list, which would be our priority actions. Of course, we'll be opportunistic. If we see grant funding for other things, we won't be silly. I forwarded to the committee your thoughts, which I think take a... We propose a fundamentally completely different approach, which is a broadening. We did just hear from Neil on the hazard mitigation plan, and we'll be providing input to that plan, which I encourage you to do as well. Our plan, you know, was probably just a couple more sentences, had a lot of focus on reducing emissions. Tom had taken the lead in the past on the sections around resilience and adaptation. And we... To the extent we can, we don't want two pants fighting. We would like to take a sense some things can go in the hazard mitigation plan and we can reference it. We would do that. So that's my overview. Quick interrupt, folks. Quick interrupt. This is my birthday. I have grandkids calling me. They're waiting for me. I'm going to unfortunately say goodbye. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Paul. Happy birthday. You have your priorities. Go for it. Go for it, Paul. All right. So that was my introduction, Jean, but happy to give you a few minutes to share your thinking. Sure. Let me begin by saying what I think Wayland residents think the Climate Action Plan is, and it's not that. When I listen to environmental, you know, sensitive people in town, they seem to think that the Climate Action Plan is a sort of master coordinating Document setting forth the town's objectives for environmental management. It may only be because they don't know about any of the other documents that exist, or they may not know about the other committees that exist. And it's my impression, I read about all the different parts of the town staffing and town committees. And basically we have a system that does a lot of good work. The groups in particular areas are paying attention to their scope of work. But it's kind of like a Swiss cheese. There's a lot of environmental topics and issues that have no home amongst all these committees and staff. And it leads to a suboptimal outcome. You know, we've done a lot of work in town. We've got become green communities and stuff. But if you really sit down and look at the system, it's very disjointed. And I am having a hard time figuring out how to cut into this conversation with the community. I have, you know, talked to people on other committees and gotten kind of, well, that's not our scope of work response. If they were put forward as town priorities, would actually make the work of these bodies much easier because they would have clearly stated public objectives for tackling some of our environmental problems. So, you know, if the answer is, you know, I'm sort of focused on biological processes, not on sequestering carbon. If you feel the ideas I have don't fit in what we are calling a climate action plan, number one, I'd recommend that you rename that document because it really, it's the plan that Energy And Climate is using to pursue their objectives. I don't think the citizens think it's a town-wide climate action plan. I understand that in some industries this language has special meaning. And you can talk to your colleagues in other towns, people who have similar professional preparation. But I think then it's getting misinterpreted in the town that we have done a comprehensive overarching plan to pull together all these fragments and fill the holes. And we really haven't done that. I guess, you know, you guys have been there a long time now and I'm not going to keep you later. I guess if any of you would like to engage in this conversation with me, I would welcome that. If you have suggestions about how I might proceed to get Someone in authority to be willing to undergo the planning process required to pull together an integrated environmental plan. I'd love to hear it. But I think you've just been clear with me that what you're looking for is a shorter, leaner document and the topics I have raised don't have a place in it. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to let Tom speak. We do have these, I think we're struggling, Gene, with the part we're not struggling with is on the mitigation, how to reduce emissions. That's, you know, we have a charter, we have a charge that's clearly in our charge. And that's what we've been mostly focused on. These other things start to get into like conservation has a place in this, right? The health department, like, and we have not seen our role as trying to be the coordinating thing for that. We sort of feel like we got our hands full. So, um, when I looked at Jane's, um, Document. What struck me is that in the world of climate, there are generally regarded two segments of that. One is mitigation and the other is adaptation. And this committee started out as the Energy Committee. And I, and somewhere along the line, we acquired the expanded title of Energy And Climate Committee. But that recognized the fact that, in fact, all of us who were members of the committee at the time were motivated by the climate issue. And even though it wasn't politically correct at one point to say it was about climate, we were supposed to just say it's about saving money on energy. We were all really motivated by climate issues. And so that... That change in title recognize that and formalize that. That didn't really change the orientation of the committee. It remained on energy. And I was the odd person out in that my other major hat is about the river. So I was engaging with people who were into adaptation issues, especially around the river. But I was the lone wolf there, and I felt I had to force something into the camp about adaptation, and I thought the best I could do was to put in adaptation elements that directly related to human risk issues. And, you know, if you read the camp, that's what you'll see. It was about flooding and it was... The only stuff about ecology really was around trees, but I could justify that as directly related to trees sequester carbon and trees provide shade. You know, it was all about the human effects. And the other huge part of adaptation is the ecological issues, which are what you've been raising, Gene. I didn't feel that I could really even get into that because, again, the rest of the committee was all oriented around energy and, you know, at best, the energy effects of shade from trees, for example. So I think you're absolutely right. There's a hole here. And, you know, I was on the CONCOM 50 years ago. And I was on the CONCOM when it was transitioning from the Town General Environment Committee to the regulator of the Wetlands Protection Act, which they increasingly became and now are almost entirely focused on. So, again, that created a huge gap. I'm agreeing with you that there's a hole here in terms of environmental protection. I'm not sure this hole exists in other towns. Certainly in my interaction with other towns around the river, I see things like the Concord Natural Resources Commission, for example. I don't really know much about them, but it... My impression is they have a lot wider scope of operations than anybody in Wayland does. So I think maybe we need a whole new town body. And I really don't know how to go any further than that except to say that. Busy trying to figure it out right now. It's an interesting project. I'm going to thank you all for your kind attention. I don't want to keep you any later. We're in the dinner hour now. And, you know, Godspeed with your work. And you'll probably hear about me twiddling around with these issues around town. May I ask who your select board representative is to your committee? Yeah, it's Bill Whitney. Okay, great. Yeah, I mean, I would, you know, I certainly would agree that there's need for like cross-sector, like really looking at environmentally, you know, what are we about in Wayland and where do we want to go? We have a small slice. We have a slice in that, but I don't think it's us. And when you look at our, like our charge, it's way beyond what that select board charged us to do. So you, yeah, I think you can consider us helpful players, but not leading, you know, not leading roles. But I did have, I really had a great, Gene was on what I thought was pretty interesting webinar on ADUs that MassEnergize put together and it, there's this whole new ADU toolkit website where you can, from MassClean Energy Center, you can put in an address and it can show you, you know, is your lot amenable to an ADU? Jean brought up a lot of great questions on like, yeah, but wouldn't you have to upgrade the septic and like a bunch of good logistical questions. And I think they were listening, Jean, when you gave them some thoughts. Bev Craig over there is terrific. So I'm thinking about in our... Climate Plan on buildings if there's something we would want to call out on ADUs. Not clear to me, Jean, you know, what that would look like. But it's better for climate, right, to not... Absolutely. Not build brand new stuff, to build mother-in-law apartments in there. So I think we could encourage that and we could call it out in the camp, possibly. Yeah, I think looking... If you're listening to our governor, we need to build tens of thousands of housing units around the Commonwealth. People can't afford housing and are under-housed. And if the environmental movement doesn't get in front of this stuff, What we will find is that the state in its desperation will keep pushing projects, pushing policies that are not environmental first. Build as many housing units as fast as you can. Put the financial inducements in place that will cause developers to choose to invest. I think we have a lot of possibility in this town, frankly, with some zoning work to create incentives so that with ADUs, people invest in their own property. They realize the return on investment themselves and they commit much less environmental damage. If we can get in front of that and create incentives to move people in that direction, I think we can do a lot to avoid having very destructive projects come into town. Can I actually jump in here really quick? Sure. So Wayland did pass a specialized stretch code, and that's a really important point. So any new builds in Wayland, I believe... There's a number of stipulations, but they can't be fully heated by gas is one of them. So that's something to think about. It is one of the regulations that municipalities need to become a climate leader. And a big motivation, I'm sure you've heard about being climate leaders through DOER, is it makes municipalities eligible for up to a million dollars of funding. So it's kind of an incentive in a way to be more Conscious of new builds and to become having that specialized stretch code. So in Massachusetts, at least, we are kind of thinking of those things. I don't know if that kind of helps bridge that gap, but that's something maybe you could speak to our building department about if you're interested in learning more about it. But Wayland is pushing for new builds to be environmentally friendly. Absolutely. And the main environmental... Impact they have is they get dropped onto lawns. Lawns are essentially an environmental desert. They don't support our indigenous life forms. And if they're getting dropped, if these buildings are getting dropped on top of garages, if they're getting put in basements, if they're getting put on lawns, our functioning ecosystem has minimal damage. If builders come in and build the way they're used to building, they do a lot of damage. And I really think we could work on having some... Zoning bylaws that would provide incentives for developers to build a different kind of cluster housing than what we have, where we're actually looking at housing units probably under 1,400 square feet in clustered properties so that you're setting aside some of the land in conservation and you're giving people much smaller properties to maintain. So that's just one idea in this constellation of things that I will throw out. Have you reached out to the planning board, Jean? I'm starting to work on that. We're going into the housing production plan. Oh, good. I want to use that exercise as a vehicle for getting out of the box and saying, OK, we've had so many of these plans. Everybody worked hard. Lots of good objectives. We got some good stuff done. We got a lot of stuff that we planned for. Didn't happen. Let's see if we can find a path through with special emphasis on environmental protection while we meet the state need for housing. Yep. That's what I'm up to. That'd be great. That'd be great. Well, I'm going to say goodnight, guys. You guys need to talk. Yeah, we do. The last thing on our agenda was to approve the minutes. I am sorry, I have not had a chance to read them. I was just looking for my email and I somehow can't find them. Have other people read them? I just have been backed up. I can't remember reading them either. I'm not. Olivia, I think we're not going to vote. They were attached to the agenda. They were attached to the agenda, but I can't. That email is not. Give me. You want me to forward it to you right now? Yeah, if everyone takes five more minutes, maybe we can just. Okay, yeah, just give me one second, please. I'll just find it quick. Hold on. I can't find it. John, did Mike get back to us about. It was the email that Olivia sent out. Well, I guess. I just forwarded it to you guys. A few minutes were part of that note you sent around, Olivia, with the agenda for today. I just forwarded it. There's two attachments. John, I think we didn't reply to this guy, Mike, about this meeting on the solar landfills. Yeah, we still need to do that. We missed that. All right, everybody read this real fast. I think the detail was great. I think we could probably be more. Succinct on the camp. We talked about updating it. Boom, done. And maybe a paragraph or a sentence on next steps. I mean, this is fine. It doesn't include everything, but it's probably fine. It doesn't include the next steps. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Whatever we call them, section leader would try to identify top three to five priorities for the next version of the plan and that Olivia would share updated plans from whatever they were native or they were Olivia, Lexington and whatever. Can you see my screen? Hold on one second. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. Can you say that one more time? All right. So at 540, after the sentence you wrote, write a period. Period. Committee C-A-M-P, camp section leads, agreed to identify three to five top priorities for a revised plan. Period. No, not right. Committee camp section leads agreed to identify three to five. Priority actions for their section. Got it. All right. Think about what we're saying. Yeah. Period. Yeah. Perfect. Period. And then Olivia agree. Olivia will circulate updated plans from Natick and other towns that recently updated their plans. Unless you remember those other towns. I don't remember them.
So, John, I don't know if there's anything, you know, people in their section. I don't think that's exactly what I said in my section, but it's fine. It's good. It's fine. It's fine. I think I just need a little more direction from you, Ellen, because I've been told in the past, keep it simple, don't say too much, and now I'm being told more detail. No, no, no, it varies by the thing. So I think this is fine. I think you could just attach the slides to the minutes, because that way you don't have to take notes. Yeah, I wasn't aware that's what you wanted, so I can definitely do that. What do the rest of the people think then? Because she's really summarizing what was in the slides. She could just attach the slides to the minutes. Isn't that easier, guys? I think this was a good summary, except for the fact that there are some clear next steps that should have been reflected. Yeah, I think this is fine. You don't need to have discussion, but you do need to capture planned actions. Right, the next steps. Yep. So I think that's what you want to capture in these minutes is like, what were any decisions and next steps, Olivia? All right. Yeah. I think this level of detail is fine. It just missed the next. So that when like Neil read it, he didn't know, okay, so now what's next? Does that make sense to you? Got it. Okay. All right. This is good. All right. I need a motion to approve. So moved. Second. Second. All right. All those in favor? I see Tom Sciacca, Bill Huss, Steve Garone, Ellen Tohn, and Neil, you're not voting because you weren't there. Right. Yep. Okay. And our next meeting, let's just, Olivia, when is our next meeting? Do you know? Somehow it doesn't show up in my calendar because I don't indicate. It's Tuesday, November 17th. Yeah, I have the 17th. All right. Ah, yes. Okay. Okay. Everyone good enough with that? Mm-hmm. This was a good meeting because we got updates on a bunch of stuff. So Paul and I will work with human rights diversity and inclusion. Olivia, maybe work with John and Paul on the MAPC stuff. Let's make sure we get our comments in early, guys. To them, so that we're not waiting for public meeting. That's not helpful. And then I hope people can comment on the hazard mitigation plan. I thought it was productive to have Neil with us. All right. Motion to adjourn. So moved. Any objections? Without objections. Thank you, Olivia, for organizing. And thanks, everyone. Bye-bye. Bye.