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Draft Meeting Minutes
January 15, 2015
7:12 pm
120 Washington Street, 3rd Floor
Attendees: John Hayes, Rick Nye, Jeff Cohen, John Hayes, Cindy Keegan (7:16pm- quorum), Nick Lewis, Rishi Nandi
Absent: J. BarzSnell
Public in Attendance: Rinus Oosthoek, David Leech, Kathy Karch, Mike O’Donald, Zach Burns, Chris Grace
Meeting Minutes approval/review (C.Keegan):
- Minutes not posted for January & March 2014 – we met in Jan, did we meet in March?
- September 2014- Met “unofficially” until 4th arrived to reach quorum to vote for approval of August minutes at 8pm (do we post drafted minutes anyway? Yes)
- Need to post August approved minutes (I have notes for modifications to draft if those haven’t already been done)
- Unanimous approval of December 2014 draft minutes with slight modifications by John Hayes.
Introduction – quick update on projects from Energy Manager
- LED Streetlights Swapping 3400 streetlights (all standard ones) to LED costs $1.1Million. Total savings $200K/ yr giving 4.4 year simple payback with lights having a 10 yr warranty.
- Green Communities Projects Close to wrapping up retro-commisioning projects in 5 buildings (DPW, Fire, Library, Police, Bentley school)- have to be done by end of February to be eligible for next round of Green Communities grant ($250K) that will be due in April. Submit final report & get reimbursements. Expected to be completed by deadline.
- Municipal Aggregation City Council approved process to investigate. Long process- expect 9 months before go out to bid (DOER & DPU is a 4-5 month process for plan to approve). Plan for outreach, how actual program will run- then you can solicit bids. Plan is fairly boiler plate- how most brokers/consultants run the program. Community solar would be additive savings from this program.
- DOER Grant for Municipalities with Decommissioned Coal Power Plants Grant program update $2Million from DOER, won’t pay for microgrid or battery storage. Only eligible for use on narrowly defined renewable projects specifically (wind turbine, solar panels, wind feasibility). Seeking Mayor to step up to see if there is a way to broaden scope of projects that can be eligible – particularly those where it’s harder to get funding/incentives already. We’d rather do projects that we know are feasible, and that have less likelihood to go forward otherwise with this type of funding. (Like microgrid project in CT)
General Discussion
- RETF By-laws discussion – Commenting and editing draft by-laws that J. Elie, the City Energy Manager, will present to the Task Force Edits were discussed and a marked-up version was created for review between meetings. Rishi has some further changes to mission that he will email, and further name discussion for final review prior to next meeting, so that final vote can be taken then.
- New Member Discussion – With the resignation of 2 members, the Task Force needs new members. Brainstorming new members will be discussed. One member previously resigned (Jeff Brandt) and an additional (Nick Lewis) stepped down tonight, so two openings exist, others willing to step down if others are interested. Jeff Cohen has one potential interested party- Craig Thomas- Masters in Sustainability from AZ, finalizing Masters at Harvard invited to next meeting. Kathy Karch, member of SAFE- teaches at Pingree, Degree in Biology, Green Team at Pingree (solar panels, LEED Platinum certified building project), assisted in drafting of Salem’s Urban Agriculture policy attended this evening’s meeting. The official process to join the committee is to submit a letter of interest to the Mayor, and then she
formally recommends members for approval by City Council.
- Footprint/CLF Renewable Energy Grant Money – Discuss projects eligible to be used with money. Possible projects include wind turbine feasibility study update, solar PV installations on City property, anaerobic digestion, and fuel cells. Not discussed.
- Solar Salem discussion and next steps – Jeff Cohen, Salem Solar Coach, will update the committee on working with Salem Alliance for the Environment (SAFE) on a new SAFE Solar Salem program that brings more residential and commercial solar installations to Salem – Solar Purchases, PPAs, and Community Solar SAFE should vote this coming Sunday and then kickoff tentatively planned in February.
Calendaring/Event Planning:
- Interest in having Living Green Fair was expressed by committee members and Rinus _____ expressed interest still by the Chamber of Commerce as well. All agreed that modifications to the format- including place, time, and activities should be considered. Suggestions were made to switch from a vendor oriented fair to more doable things for families, with sponsors to help financially support the event. Possible linkages to school green teams, PEM, Salem State, Green Building tours (typically run in October). Subcommittee (Cindy Keegan, Rishi Nandi, Jeff Cohen, and Rinus ____) will meet to further discuss possible dates, school interest, location options, sponsor/speaker ideas, etc. John Hayes offered that if we wanted Salem State involved we needed to avoid Saturday, May 16 since that is graduation.
- Earth Day/Clean up – 1st weekend of May – consider possible joint involvement with Recycling Committee activities being planned.
- Solar kickoff- February.
- Consider speaker series.
Key Decisions:
- Motion to change Jeff Cohen from alternate to official member from J. Hayes, 2nd by Rishi, approved unanimous by all.
- Nick Lewis is officially resigning- thanks for all he has contributed as founding member.
Action Items:
- Rishi Nandi to send mission statement modification suggestions to all members.
- Cindy Keegan to make modifications as agreed to December minutes for final version, draft minutes for this meeting& bylaw changes and send to all members.
- All members to consider committee name changes and circulate prior to, or bring to, next meeting for incorporation into bylaws.
Future Meetings
- Next meeting would normally be held on February 19, 2015 but since that is school vacation week we decided to move it to Feb 26, 2015 at 7pm.
Adjournment: 8:45pm
Know Your Rights Under the Open Meeting Law, M.G.L. c. 39 §23B, and
City Ordinance Sections 2-2028 through 2-2033
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