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Board - Committee - Commission - Council:
Climate Advisory Committee
Date: .2016 -01 -27
Building: Reading Town Hall
Address: 16 Lowell Street
Purpose: Bi- monthly meeting
Attendees: Members - Present:
Time: 7:00 PM
RECEIVED
TOWN CLERK
READING, MASS.
2016 FEB IS A oF Oi 1
Location: Conference Room
loan Boegel, member; Ron D'Addario, member and chair; Gina Snyder,
associate member; David Zeek, member; Laurie Ann Sylvia, member.
Members - Not Present:
Ray Porter, member
Others Present:
Jeff Everson
Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Joan Boegel
® Topics of Discussion:
• Review and Approval of recent meeting minutes. The minutes of the January 13,
2016, meeting were reviewed and approved as amended with revisions suggested by
committee members.
• Administrative
o Ron reported that he spoke to Paula Schena and learned that the selectmen
will vote on Jeff Everson's appointment to the Climate Advisory Committee in
February.
• Senior Citizen's energy efficiency.
• Ron reported that he met with Jane Burns and they completed 80% of the
Eastern Bank grant application together. Jane will review it with Jean Delios
and then the Town Manager. Ron also started the application for the
People's United Bank grant application and left it for Jane to complete.
• Ron visited Northern Bank today. They do not have a formal grant application
process, but they were given Gina's proposal and they indicated they would
probably provide some funding.
• Jane Burns told Ron that Honda Gallery has communicated to the Town an
interest in helping senior citizens. Ron spoke with the Honda Gallery
representative and emailed her Gina's proposal.
• Joan suggested that Home Depot might be interested in helping as they have
been supportive in the past and the home energy efficiency project is in line
with their business. Gina also mentioned REI as a business that has a
® commitment to helping the community. Laurie Ann volunteered to speak with
her contacts at Home Depot and REI.
• Ron asked Gina to email her proposal to all committee members.
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Town of Reading - Meeting Minutes
• Solar
• Community Solar. Gina reported that there is no news on Community Solar.
• Residential Solar / Solarize Reading.
• Ron emailed Jill from Direct Energy Solar informing her that the
committee is interested in Solarize but cannot commit to an exclusive
arrangement with one installer. Jill responded with more Information,
including a model Request for Proposal (RFP). Ron will be meeting
with Ml next Thursday.
• Gina emailed all Committee members a newsletter from Belmont
Citizens Forum which covers the issues involved with solar PV
installation in municipal light department communities.
• Ron will call Jane Parenteau, Manager of RMLD Integrated Resources, to invite
her to one of our meetings in February (2/10 or 2/24) for a discussion of
RMLD's business plan for renewable energy, and specifically Community Solar
and individual residential solar. (Note: Later In the meeting, Gina
volunteered to make the phone call to Jane Parenteau.)
• School presentations. Nothing new to report.
• Gas Leaks
• A total of 21 municipalities have now signed resolutions supporting the
legislation.
• There has been no response from Town Manager to emails or voice mall
messages.
• Earth Day 2016
• Laurie Ann has booked the RMLD building for Saturday, April 23.
®
• The Earth Day event will likely focus on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
It would be an opportunity to promote both Community Solar and individual
residential solar photovoltaics.
• Laurie Ann reviewed the list of exhibitors from Earth Day 2015. Ron and others
offered to help make phone calls to these contacts and to potential new
exhibitors.
• Friends and Family Day
• Friends and Family Day is scheduled for June 11. We did not participate last
year.
• After brief discussion, the Committee agreed that this event is not a good
opportunity for our community outreach efforts, so we will decline the invitation
again this year.
• Micro-grid grant money
o Jeff sent an email to MassDOER inquiring about the availability of Resiliency
Program grant money. Jeff thinks there may be $15 million left in this program,
but so far he has not had any response to his inquiry.
• Outreach to Representative Brad Jones
o David Zeek stated that our state representative, Brad Jones, is on the conciliation
committee working to merge the House and Senate versions of bills regarding net
metering and SRECs. David suggested meeting with Representative Jones to
discuss these bills. Ron advised Dave to first ask if these bills are relevant to
municipal light departments.
OClimate Action Plan
o Ron asked David Zeek and Jeff Everson if they had reviewed the Reading Climate
Action Plan (2008) which had been emailed to them. Both had looked at it but
were not prepared to discuss details. Ron suggested that we all review the plan
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Town Of Reading - Meeting Minutes
and get focused on how the committee should spend its time and effort over the
next five years.
• Joan recommended that we also revisit the RMLD 4 -town action plan - LEAP (local
energy action plan) - that had been prepared with MAPC in 2011. Gina agreed
to send the LEAP to everyone.
o Our assignment before the next meeting (February 10) is to review the action
plans and email ideas to David Zeek on what to discard, what to modify and what
to add to plan. David will receive and compile the comments and suggestions.
• There was some discussion of whether google docs or google drive could be used
to facilitate sharing of documents.
The meeting adjourned at 8:30 p.m.
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