2006-04-26 Cities for Climate Protection Minutes

Home Browse Search

Reading Advisory Committee on Cities for Climate Protection Program Committee Notes for April 26, 2006 Present were Stephanie Anderberg, Michele Benson, Ron Daddario, Gina Snyder, and Ray Porter. The minutes for April 12 and 19 were accepted unanimously. Due to a last-minute change to the Town Meeting schedule, Tracy was not given a spot on the agenda for April 24t" for the overview to Town Meeting and is rescheduled for April 27. The committee decided to call to interview the primary candidate for our advertised internship, and if the interview went well, and based on the excellent reference feedback received, to offer the job. The basic parameters would be for 8 to 20 hours a week, the intern would record hours worked and percent completeness of the inventory. [Immediately following the meeting, Tracy, Ron and Gina interviewed and ended a good interview with an offer for the job. The candidate indicated.a...need for a week or a little more to evaluate the summer schedule; while working with Reading on this project fits perfectly with interests and plans for graduate school, the candidate will need other summer employment as prior to leaving for graduate school August 20.] Stephanie will be calling Paula at town hall to check on how the funds would be dispersed both for the canvas bags and for the internship compensation. The canvas bags purveyor will be providing a cost estimate of number of bags with two-color printing. Stephanie also confirmed that the Webpage address ci.reading.ma.us/climate can be linked to the web-page that Tracy has been setting up. We will plan to put our meeting agendas on it along with a meeting schedule. We will need to assess how much changing information to try to keep up on the webpage without overwhelming our ability to keep up with it. Michele reported that using the year 2000 as the base year for the inventory will be no problem for RMLD. She also provided hand outs on Green Bylaws adopted by Truro, which is broader that what we discussed for Reading, but demonstrates what some other communities are doing, and a page that defines green building. The committee wants to think about what would work best for Reading - if it's bylaw changes, this would be a major undertaking. We also discussed that the intern may need our help to access records from the year 2000 for the ' baseline from Town Hall for the municipal side of the software. Also, there may be opportunities to include more or less detail with the software, depending on what records are available. For example, again from Town Hall, excise tax records might give detail on types of vehicles used by residents for the transportation category, or we might end up using some of the assumptions that the model can provide if the data are too difficult to obtain or evaluate and/or enter. Ray provided an updated timeline, and following a discussion of the possibilities, it was decided to break out into more detail the data collection to include the various categories/sectors to tease out some detail. Also, the intern wouldn't be able to start until the beginning of June, so that date would need to move out. Ron called a contact from Hull Wind, an energy engineer, and he indicated he'd be willing to talk with us. The committee acknowledged that to evaluate the potential for wind power in the RMLD service area, a year-long wind study including an anemometer set up would be required. This could run $50- 100,000 and so is no easy task. The committee discussed land owned by RMLD - Causeway Street in Reading and next to Moynahan's in North Reading. Michele will look into it at RMLD. Michele will also check into a global warming special that she caught on CNN and Stephanie will check to see if her dad was able to tape the HBO special "Too Hot not To Handle." Ron has been trading emails with the Walkable Streets group (they have a new person) and the developer who offered to come and have a discussion with us. Committee members expressed a preference for Friday afternoons for the Walkable Streets visit/walk. Next meeting would be May 10. Also, here is the website for the wind map for Reading http://masstech. org/RenewableEnergy/Community_Wind/maps/Wind%20Resources_READING.pdf And a web link with info on NE wind http://www. eere. energy. gov/windandhydro/windp oweringamerica/newengland. asp