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Russ (chair), John, Brian, Pam, Rob (secretary).
Visiting: Laura Burns
Meeting called to order, we have a quorum.
Agenda:
1) Voting for the carbon footprint study consultant.
2) Need a liaison from this committee for the carbon footprint study. A primary and a backup person.
3) Feedback from Charlie on warrant to form permanent committee.
4) Start laying out structure of our action plan for deadline of April 1 to be ready for town meeting.
Approved the above agenda.
Approved Dec. 18, 2007 minutes (Rob post and make official on web site).
Russ: Charlie Christello recommended we recommended a permanent/standing committee to follow through on the mission.
Laura: Use the form of an old warrant as a draft: "will the town establish a
permanent energy policy committee to do the following:....". How many people,
terms, suggestions of members. Charlie and I met someone from the Duxbury
energy committee who are really moving along with their plan. Perhaps make
some members who can't always make it because of conflicts (Ted, Dave) 'ex
officio members'. That would free up two spots for energetic citizens.
John: I'm looking forward to working on this in the future, the HMLP does some
of this, but the new committee has much more citizen input. Our list needs to
have some of the things we need to do now. It is an implementation committee.
Laura: Make clear the new committee's job is to continue our work and start
off with implementation, then grow and expand in the future.
John: We need to start implementing a project right away so we can get energy
and visibility, like the carbon footprint study.
Russ: some of us might want to continue on the new committee to make sure the
topics each of us are interested will get implemented.
Laura: Russ, can you discuss that more?
Russ: One action is to do the carbon footprint study (with a consultant), then
monitor our progress (ourselves) against the study. Then look wind, solar,
building codes, LEED, etc.
Laura: The key is to harness the energy that is out there to get these tasks
done, to work on each of the tasks. The policy committee is the overseer of
these volunteers. Jan. 20 is deadline for warrant articles. The advisory
committee and moderator appoint the members, e.g. appoint 5 by selectman, 2 by
moderator.
John: we need to focus on the initial tasks for the permanent committee.
Pam: think about staggered terms of the new committee for overlap and
continuity.
Laura: the wagon wheel structure that Brian mentioned is a good way to
organize the new committee. Charge committee with initial tasks and
implementation, then move on to manage energy policy for the town/selectman in
the future.
John: should we discuss the 'wagon wheel' structure in the warrant article?
Russ: each 'sub committee' will be headed by a committee member to work on one
project.
Laura: you want to let the selectman and town know how this will work, so
there is accountability for the new and 'sub' committees.
Russ: lets formalize this: 1) get boilerplate for warrant article 2) get the
right wording on mission, composition, appointment, terms, managing work
groups
Laura: use wording that a committee member or their 'designee' can attend the
work groups.
Russ: are those the basics? I'd like to vote on this.
Brian: what are typical terms?
Laura: 3 year terms, with different offsets, e.g. start off with 4 people with
3 year terms, and 3 people with 2 year terms. Generally people do not more
than 2 terms.
Pam: motion to approve we draft a warrant article, to be revised over the next
two weeks.
Voted, unanimous.
Russ: lets talk about carbon footprint study consultants.
Pam: ICLEI hasn't given us a quote, we have a ballpark of 35K from them.
John: source one has given us a quote of $30K.
Brian: we can pick a liaison.
Russ: lets put off the carbon consultant vote, since we don't have a third
quote to compare with.
Pam: I volunteer to be the liaison for the carbon footprint study.
Brian: I volunteer to be the backup.
John: perhaps we need to define the methodology of the study (ICLEI?).
Brian: we need to know what the summary is (the ICLEI software?) formatted
like so that that when we do it ourselves in the future.
John: we need to have the vendor we vote on to come in and we can hammer out
what the contract is and what the output format will be.
Brian: funding requirements: return time payback, what rate of return does the
town require? "It takes money to save money".
Russ: we need to have our action plan ready for the town meeting (the last
Monday in April, the 28th).
Russ: next on the agenda: the working session plan and agenda. Brian, would
you take this on as a task, to organize the work?
John: we'd like to have a draft of the action plan done in time to show to the
selectman before the town meeting.
Brian: I accept the task.
Russ: so between now and town meeting we will work on the action plan and Pam
will manage the carbon footprint study. Working session dates?
Brian: I'll put together 4 working sessions, I'll outline them.
Russ: our next meeting should be in two weeks, Jan. 16 at 7pm. Next agenda:
Finalize warrant article, vote on carbon footprint consultant, working session
one, schedule remaining work sessions.
John: we haven't finalized that 12% of green energy in the HMLP plan, it is
the HMLP boards plan.
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Meeting is adjourned at 8:20pm.
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Next meeting: Wednesday Jan. 16, 7pm.