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