So we are now recording. So I know Lori's here, but I've offered to see if we could get somebody to step in as chair for this one meeting. Lori's got a lot on our plate right now. So just to give her a little slack and also, we will need a minute taker. So Dwayne did it last time. So if somebody could step up. So Steve, you want to be the minute taker? Yeah, I saw my name was underneath Dwayne's under on the last minute. So I set up to start taking minutes. Okay. We did skip over a few people. I don't think I've taken them for a while. So I don't mind. Okay. All right. So well, so the first agenda item tonight is to You still want someone to share. That's the first agenda item is to is the vote for a chair pro tem. So, Lori, we can't hear you. I saw you look like you were trying to speak. No, I can't hear you. And it doesn't look like you're muted.  So I'm not sure. If it's going to do with your computer setting. I'm going to give you a little while to join. Audio. Yeah, I think this is different than like her microphone doesn't even show up. She's just muted. So, Can I nominate someone. Yeah. Yes, just giving, I think we're all set. Now, yep, there we go. Okay. So now that Lori is, now that Lori is fully up here, Now we can proceed. So, So we're going to start with the vote for chair pro tem for this one meeting. So I wanted to see if there was first anybody who wanted to self nominate. I'm happy to do it. I don't know. You guys seem like a nice enough group that even if I make a mistake, it should be okay. No big trouble, Jesse. I do run a meeting with a pretty strong hand. Is there anyone else who's interested in sharing this meeting? Okay. So does anyone want to make a motion for Jesse to serve as our chair. Move that Jesse's selling the pro tem chair for this meeting. I second. Thank you, Jesse. Okay. And then I'm going to get asked for a voice vote. And again, this is in no particular order. Rose. Yes. Roof. Yes. Selman. Abstain. You can vote for yourself. It's really okay. Yes. Awkward, but it's okay. Yes. And Goldner. Yes. Jesse, I turn the. Virtual gavel over to you. All right. Thank you, Steve for doing the minutes. I believe. We now review the previous meetings minutes, which I typically we have read ahead of time. So if anybody wants to comment or move. To approve. I'm happy to put them up on the screen as well. I move we approve them. Do we have a second? My second. Great. And then the vote voice vote. Again, no order. Rose. Yes. Roof. Yes. Selman. Yes. Gregor. Yes. Goldner. Yes. All right. The minutes are approved. And I'm going to look, we have now public comment. We have three attendees. If anybody is, we'd like to make public comment, please raise your virtual hand. Janet. Okay. Unmute yourself and you can go ahead, Janet. I think I'm unmuted. Hi. I'm Janet McGowan. I am live at 706 Southeast street. I'm a member of the planning board. I'm a member of the planning board. I'm a member of the planning board. I'm a member of the solar bylaw working group. I know you're going to be talking about priority sites for solar. And I can't attend the whole meetings. I have to get ready for my planning board meeting tonight. So I'm jumping in here. And, you know, I think for guidance on this. I encourage you to do what I'm doing, which is looking at the state climate action plans for 2020 to 2030. For example, natural working lands, which are wetlands, farms, forests. And for their ecological services. As well as, you know, other sort of more aesthetic things, but they do a lot of work for us. And then the plans also call for increasing the amount of forest land. Making forest harvesting more productive that can actually lead to greater carbon sequestration and use of wood. And that also calls for the protection of natural working lands. And to increase local food production, which I think is what's sort of great is we see that happening. And we see more local food going to low income communities. And so the climate act, the carp really outlines in a lot of detail, the ecological issues that we're seeing. And so that, that kind of call is echoed in the really strong on carp, the climate action and resilience plan that your committee put together. And that also calls for the protection of natural working lands. And it also calls for putting solar on the built environment. And, you know, as you look around Amherst, and all I do really now is drive events and staring at rooftops and parking lots. As you can see that most of the rooftop in asphalt is at our large institutions. The university, the colleges and, you know, municipal buildings are schools. Although there's ample rooftops. And it also calls for putting solar on the built environment. And you know, as you look around Amherst, there's a lot of residential rooftops and parking lots at commercial stores. And also the residential areas in terms of rooftops. And maybe even as we say along, which we're looking to more things. So, you know, for me, you know, we did a, you know, when we did the survey, the GZA survey also mimics these calls for action, which is to prioritize putting solar on the built environment, particularly to protect forest land. And then forest and also farms and look at dual use agricultural solar, which I know is a sort of an experimental thing in Massachusetts, but definitely we're, we're looking at. I also think that, you know, our farmland, our prime soils are really precious, but we have a lot of organic farming in our community and a lot of farms looking to no till, which is also increasing carbon sequestration as well as the strength of the soils. So that's, that's sort of my advice or my urge, you know, my recitation of the different plans that I've been reading. And so I encourage you to, as you look at the priorities, to look at the plants that are already been taking place with careful study. Thank you. Okay. If anyone else from the public is interested in making a comment at this time, please raise your hand. Also, just to, since I still see any hands up just to respond to Janet and say, that's a great, we very much appreciate that, that, you know, this type of comment based on research, et cetera, you're obviously involved in, in other groups in town. So thank you for, for taking the time to come to our meeting as well. I'm a huge fan of soil as a part of this whole puzzle personally. So I'm a huge fan of plans because I, we have so many great plans in town. I'd love to see us just implement them and not debating it. Just let's go forward. So thank you so much. I appreciate your work. I mean, I, I love the, the carp. So thanks. Awesome. Thank you. All right. I do not see anyone else with a hand up. And I see our next agenda item, I believe is transportation and pace with D and Don and they are both absent. So we're going to, I think, cross those off. Go on to number five, the specialized stretch code. Lori, I don't know if you have anything prepared, but I did get a chance to meet with Stephanie today. I just sent a, the slides from last week. I think I forgot to send them right after the meeting. I sent them to Stephanie and Vasu yesterday. And I hope Stephanie will just forward them to folks. And if you haven't seen them, Jesse, I should send them to you as well. But yeah, I'd be interested to hear what you guys talked about. I haven't, I've been as you may have heard busy. With family emergency. And I didn't, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah. And I have been rather preoccupied for the last 10 days with that. I just got my head out of the sand yesterday. So. I have not had a chance to do much more with it. And send that package to Stephanie. Yeah. And I'm happy to pick up the ball on that one. As well. If. If that makes sense. So. Stephanie, do you want to jump in or you. I'm sorry, I'm going to backtrack just a little bit. I wanted to know if you want to. Schedule the transportation and pace updates for the next meeting. As. Neither. Stella or Don are here. Do you want those to carry over to the next meeting? Sure. Sure. And would it make sense. Do we reach out to. Stella and Don? I'm sorry. I'm going to backtrack just a little bit. I wanted to know if you want to. Schedule the. Transportation and pace updates for the next meeting. As. Neither. Stella or Don are here. Do you want those to carry over to the next meeting? Sure. And I'm going to go ahead and move on. And say. These were rescheduled. Sure. Yeah. I think yes. Can easily do that. And it will show up on the agenda. But I can let them know ahead of time. Yeah. Just push the heat pump and what was the other one up? Solar by law, I think up then. A meeting. Don't try to do all four of them at once. I'm going to move them off to the next one after that. It's just going to push. The other two back a bit. Awesome. Okay. This specialized stretch code. So. I think the, the recap is, I mean, just sort of step by step, as far as the conversations that have been had with that, the first meeting with. Rob Mora and Davis gave its. Where they. Were. Suggesting that we don't rush it too much and sort of like find a, the right time. For this to coincide with. Other code updates, et cetera. And then we as a group said, let's do this as quickly as possible. And looking at that. And quickly as, and which now I believe. I think. Still coincides very much with their expectations of there. I think I would say supportive on board and we'll endorse. What we are doing. And, and so what I'd like to do is maybe Lori. I can take over that presentation. And send a draft to Stephanie to review with them. And then they can formally. Say what you're saying makes sense. The timeline of it. And, and just so you guys know the one, there's really one thing that they're seeing as an issue. And I don't think this affects the timeline, but just so we all know this. They're seeing issues with kind of equipment and systems that are being required, particularly electric. Equipment, you know, upgrading services and buildings to be more electric. And, and they don't want this to put an undue on us. On, on, on folks and, and potentially even steer them away from the electric options. That was their feedback. It sounds to me like this, like this is going to. Get kickoff in July, 2024. That's my guess. And the reason is. The, the quickest if the town council votes to do this. The quickest it would take effect is six months. It's either six months or a year. That's kind of, and so if they, it doesn't seem likely that that vote could happen before July. Therefore, six months from past July is past January. And then once we passed January one. The suggestion is to wait until July one, 2024. If there's a way that we can get this to go January one, 2024 to sort of take effect. I think that would be great. But I'll, I think I'm happy to kind of dig into that some more. And see. Yeah. Let's say this, this makes sense. I'm seeing a lot of confused faces. I think it makes sense. I'm still in favor of pushing ahead. And seeing if we can. Get it on the council agenda in June. Yeah. So we could, we could. We could look to do that, which could be just a very simple letter. We could look at that. And we could look at that. We could look at the goal of starting in 2024. So January one, 2024. And if not, we can also take the work that Lori's done. I don't know if you've seen this, but she's got a short PowerPoint that's kind of set up to be just kind of edited a little bit. Sweet down. So then present if, if, if the council needs. Or wants sort of Q and A or questions or. Any questions or comments. In some ways to support it to make, which could make it simpler and easier for them. To vote an approval sort of handed to them. Some of the thinking. So they don't have to go into the research themselves. I think most of that work is done. So I think we could be ready to do that at any moment. I mean, I think I could, I could give that presentation. Laurie. I think could give that presentation. She gave it great. Job at the last meeting, but I'm happy to do it as well. Yeah. I definitely think you should do it, Jesse, since you're the guy who knows the building community way better than I do. And I also think that one thing we could consider is sending, just sending them the link to the DOER presentation. Now the first half of it is all in the stretch code and they might be interested in that too. I don't know the specialized, the news updates stretch code. But it does have everything in it. Finally, one other thing is I noticed that some people on the BEA listserv have been asking if there are folks who can be available to either give the presentation or answer questions at different community organizations. And I haven't seen a yes answer to that, but it might be interesting. I wouldn't mind sending a note to the list, seeing if somebody's actually willing to do that. If there's, if there are people out there who are happy to, you know, be in the audience even just to answer questions. I don't know if that's necessary or not, but. So why don't, did, Stephanie, did, did Vasu already send a letter to, to Lynn? Or no, who's the president? Is Lynn so the president? Lynn Griezmer is the council president. And yes, I believe he did actually a few months ago send a letter. About this. And I know that this topic has come up with the council. I believe. Anna has or Anna has brought that up with the council. So what my suggestion was is, you know, maybe Jesse and or, or Lori reaching out to Anna. To sort of check in to see where they are with their process, because I know she brought it up, but I don't know if it's moving towards trying to get them towards a vote in June. In June, I'm not sure. So it's worth connecting with her. And I could also reach out on your behalf. Just to ask. No, I'll do that. I'd be happy to do that. Lori, if you want to formally pass this off. Yeah. I'm happy to take this on. I think Jesse, if you want to take that on, that's great. And I think that I agree. The thing to do is to follow up and find out if it's already on their agenda. And if it isn't to try to get it on their agenda for a specific meeting. That we could then have that presentation ready for you could give it and maybe we can even find somebody else to be in the audience to help out if we need help.  Let me know, I think offline, if you want me to write to someone at BEA, see if there's anybody else who can help with this. I don't know if they'll answer affirmatively or not, but it might be worth asking. But once we, we should have a date first, I think. Yeah. All right. I'll, I'll reach out to Anna. Great. Thank you. Awesome. I would suggest, I don't know. If they're on a. Second or third, you know, first and third, second and fourth. Mondays, but. If it's next week. And there's a chance of getting an initial. Vote, I think they have to vote twice. On everything. So. It's time. Relevant. And the agenda gets set on Thursdays, I believe. Yeah. So that they meet on Monday, June 12th, and the meeting packet has already been posted for that. It's possible. It's possible that a counselor can bring up. Something. As you know, I don't know. Why don't we just try to officially get it on the calendar for the one after that, which is two weeks later. Is that right? I won't, I won't be here for that. I'll be on vacation, but I think that would be great. And then we'll do it again two weeks after that. If it has to be on the agenda twice. Is that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's a June 26th meeting. And a July 17th meeting. So maybe. Let me, I'm going to defer to. And let her advise on how we can do it. I don't want to pretend to know what they do or don't have time for right now. Sounds great. Just let us know. Awesome. Yeah. I will report back. Okay. Anything else on that topic? Anyone wants to add in there? It's exciting. And it's very significant. The more towns that do it. The faster we're going to meet our goals. So. I'm glad that we're pushing for Amherst to do it as soon as we can. I like it. That's great. Okay. Number six review and vote letter to new DPU commissioners. Rose. I haven't done anything on it. Sorry. No worries. It's, um, you know, let's let the council focus on the specialized stretch code. Get that through. Yeah. Great. That's the app. And that was, that was a lot of what we talked about in the previous meetings. I think you weren't at, but. I think that's the best way to get to the, the best place. I think that's the best place. Sort of our consensus as a group. It's like, let's. One thing. Annual report. And then after that's in place, the idea would be, then we would have some leverage to be able to write such a letter. You know, saying, you know, have something to show for it that we are on board with this. Right. Get your house. Other ways as well. Yeah. That's right. I think that's the best way to do that. I think that's the best way to do that. I think that's the best way to do that. Maybe this, take this as a reminder to make comments and send them back to Stephanie. And Vasu. Anything else to. That gets said on that. I've agreed to. Right. A section on regional and state. Level. Oh, great. I'll do that. When, um, I think, yeah, I think. I think that's the best way to do that. I think that's the best way to do that. To have the next meeting be a. You know, fruitful. This needs to be to him. By a certain date. Do you know what it is? Is that in the minutes? I'm just going to look for the email. Don't remember seeing it in the minutes. Could be wrong about that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. About three weeks. About three weeks from May 25th. So my little week calculator here. May. 25th. Next week. Three weeks to be June 15th. Yeah. So I'd say. And the next week. He said he wants, yeah, he said he wants it by the 16th. He's going to work on it over the weekend of the 17th and 18th. And. Present it to the ECAC on the 21st, which is his last meeting. And he gave everyone. A reminder, and I'll, I'll just read them. Andre, you just mentioned your, he said complete section two. Lori. Complete section three. Dwayne section four. And then there's Dela, who's not here would be section five. And Don, who's also not here would be section six. But he did send it to everybody. On the 28th. So I can read. I can forward this. Message again, just as a reminder. It probably be a good idea to remind the other folks as well. We're not here. Was there anything that email that suggested sort of the level of detail or, or lengths that he's looking for. Let's see. I don't think, I mean, I think he just wanted you to give updates. I, I think. The idea is just to give the information that you have. I don't think it's any specified length. You know, I think it's always probably good to be as succinct as you can. As chair of today's meeting, I'm directing you to make it. As short as possible. Exactly. That's the guidance I'm looking for. Make it the length you would want to read. Yes, short and sweet. And can I ask, what do you think does the specialty stretch code fit into the regional and state level? Yeah. Like our, our. Implementing state level opportunities. Yeah. Or are there too many things that are like that, like every grant that we have. Yeah, regional, state, local. I mean, that's local. The implementation is local because it's a town by town. But I feel like that could be a single sentence. In your piece, Sandra. Okay. Awesome. Steve. Are you prepared to discuss rental housing by law? No. It was a bit of a surprise to see it. Laura had brought up the idea and I think the general. Thought at this stage would be kind of regrouping. And see what we, if we might want to take on the rental housing energy efficiency. As a major effort in the near future. For those of you who.  In the last two years. We tried to get a bunch of data from the town to understand better the rent, the rental housing stock. And we have some of that data. We have some interesting data in the distribution of the rental stock between single family, two family, multifamily. A little bit of information about the age. And then. Beyond that, the details get kind of mixed up. Because the property card information. And the rental registration information are in different universes. Nonetheless, we did pull together some recommendations that we had. Initially included in the town councils revised the rental registration by law. But those got pulled a couple of months ago before that rental bylaw went forward. Those suggestions that we had in that draft bylaw were largely whether I think they're to my member, right? Two main things. One is to get more information as part of the rental registration. More information on the age of the house. The type of appliances. More information about insulation. That sort of thing to build a database so we can better understand the rental housing stock. And then we also slipped in a. Request or requirement, I guess that. For getting a rental. Rental permit would require getting a mass save inspection. Every five years or something like that. So I think that's a good point. I think that those ideas. Yeah, as I said, got, got next. There was some feedback from. Property owners that they were. Two onerous or too difficult to do. So the council dropped those. I haven't had time to really get back into it. And I would suggest that if we choose to take on this as a mission. That we get. That we can figure out what to do next and shepherd it through. All the hoops that will need to. Be jumped through. Yeah, I'll say that. This is a good. Top is an important one. Because. We, I think one of the reasons we identified this and. That's important and that Steve took it on. It was that it, it's a, it has. It has a good co-benefits as far as it's not just about carbon. It's about improving. Living conditions. Right. And so, and there's also, and given the amount of work that's already been done, I would say just maybe for the minutes to say that. To identify that. This is an important topic. And we do want to pick it back up again. And. So to agree. Agree with Steve that. I get a critical mass and do it as a team. And. Make sense. I think it's a good one to jump back on when the time is right. One of the things that we didn't get to include was the. The local renters. The grant came through. The local renters. That took the, it was that M power grant. Is that the right. Name Stephanie. That did come through. It is work that the community, as I understand from Stephanie's recent reports, the community is organizing and working to begin to. Form some kind of a renters. Advocacy group. I can give an update on that, Steve. My updates. Okay. In your updates in a few minutes. Sorry. Okay. So I think that would be a great improvement for a future effort on rental housing would be to work with the renters. And hopefully with this group that the empower grant has empowered. That was something that we did not weren't able to do last time because the grant took an awfully long time to get. Awarded and then all the paperwork signed. And I think the group is still getting themselves organized or. You know, so hopefully if we take this on, then that's a group that we could work with. More closely this time. Or figure out sort of what vehicle we would use to try to get these energy efficiency improvements. Codified. I guess there's two choices, just kind of thinking off the top of my head. One would be the carrot approach where we continue to. We continue to be concerned about. And the other option would be that we would have to start with water massave. Or we try to get something. Ultimately, perhaps passed by the town that would require some energy efficiency standards. For mental housing. Now that reminds me I, there was, there is was. I think there's an effort. I think the commission has got to do that. I think the commission has developed. Committee has been studying a clean, clean heat initiative. You guys clean heat standard. Clean heat standard. Okay. As I understand, I think there was a commission that has studied that. And maybe they've done a report. And that might influence. Rental housing. Oh, there is a. provision in that to redevelop statewide reporting standards for large buildings across Massachusetts. And that's an under development in one of the state agencies. And off the top of my head it was, it was going to be large buildings greater than 150,000 square feet or. That would probably use the EPA energy portfolio manager. As a platform where the building owners or managers would have to report their energy through that, although the utility companies would be obligated to provide the aggregated utility information through that platform. But that that won't affect most buildings. True that won't affect I don't know what size they would end up and whether any of the larger apartment complexes would possibly fall under that. I kind of doubt it I don't think it's intended for rental housing. No, and certainly not developments that have multiple units which is how they pretty much all are. Yeah, yeah. I guess I had a hope of not really knowing much about it. If this portfolio manager the EPA portfolio manager system gets adopted more widely, then maybe that gives us some leverage to within town to require smaller buildings and mental properties to also use that. I think that we would have to, you know, pace and mass save are not carrots. They're, they're a lot to deal with. Useful, but, you know, a real carrot would have to either give landlords some publicity or actual support in the form of, you know, grants or something. Yes. And that's part of the tough nut to crack is how, how much support to provide. Yeah, and how much backed up by some sort of sticks. So I guess my summary there are some movements that are going on in the state level that might kind of provide some support for energy efficiency, improving energy efficiency of rental units. So maybe this fall would be a time for a team from ECAC to look into that again. That's what I was thinking before. I think when we do this, I'm in distress today, and I think probably you guys might be too if you've been looking at the news. One of the things we might try to do every time we bring this up at town council or anywhere. Is like, if you look at the, I'm going to, I'm going to, can I share my screen with you. I just want to show you what the front page of the New York Times looks like right now. This is why we need everything we can possibly get right because these fires that are going on right now are direct result of climate change. We never had our boreal fires in Canada until a few years ago. And now this is what they're doing just a few years in to the beginning of these sorts of fires. It's going to get worse. Washington Post is no better. The entire East Coast is shrouded like this. We were shrouded yesterday. I don't know if you guys saw the ash falling. I saw ash falling in East Hampton yesterday. Anyway, I'll stop there but I just wanted to point out that maybe when we talk about carrots and sticks we should also talk about just bringing a little reality into every discussion with pictures like that. You know, we don't do everything we can do. This is this is where we are and it's going to get worse. Yeah, I mean it seems like our hands are a bit tied in terms of doing anything without, you know, part of it could be proposals to develop some carrots by the town to, for example, give a seal of approval to some renters that demonstrate energy efficient buildings that could be marketed. Obviously that's going to take effort and sustained effort and human resources to implement something like that. So thinking there could be an effort that's even not town driven it could be e-cac or something is to educate consumers. Renters to ask, always ask your perspective tenant to see an energy bill or what's been the energy cost going to be for me and to use that as part of their negotiations as well as comparative shopping. But those take effort too. I've talked to Jesse about this a little bit. And it just seems to me that there needs to be more consistent messaging about conservation and not using energy. I feel like I grew up at a time where energy conservation was just a huge issue. And people were really motivated and it had an impact and I feel like we've kind of lost that messaging it feels like it's sort of caught up more in technology as a solution and I just feel like that's not accurate. Nor is it really working or is it going to work? So I just feel again that people need to know that they need to stop using energy as much as they normally do.  You know, those are simple things and they seem, they almost seem kind of silly, but collectively that makes a huge difference. And I think I've got friends who are so smart, so concerned, and I go to their houses and other lights are on. You know, and their kids are already moved out of the house and it's just two of them. I feel like those are the messages we need to continue to get out there because even the people who know and are concerned sometimes just kind of forget. Maybe we could give a bulk rate discount on motion detector light switches. That is not a bad idea. We have found that simple energy monitoring systems that show you.  When you can see it, you turn it down that type of thing. It has a really good feedback loop, particularly in campus settings, but also in households, but oftentimes the type of person that buys that device is someone that is already looking, they want to, they want to turn it down. Yeah, I know it's huge. I think it's important. It's a really important piece of the puzzle is maybe making those devices available, you know, maybe having an incentive program where we're actually giving them to people.  It's an incredible deal. Yeah, so if the town has that ability to buy a thousand of the right device, although again here we are buying a buying a solution.  Yeah. So, when we dive back into this there are quite a bit of resources available to look at how other communities have done this. And I have got a whole team working on this that's continuing to be active. So there, I think there can be help from outside the town that we can look at for good ideas and what other communities have done successfully. Yeah, well, I'll say, I think maybe to wrap this up, thank you, Laurie for sort of reminding us why we're sitting here. And for reminding us of an often that sort of critical piece. It's not that we lose track of the shiny things to distract us. I'm looking at the list here, and Laura Drucker has a discussion of prioritized solar siting. I think is probably related to our public comment. And I think without Laura, we probably should not embark on that conversation. And so I'll definitely staff updates, maybe start with the one relevant to Steve's. Sure. Sure. So I've been working now with a resident group that was basically pulled together by family outreach of Amherst on conducting a rental survey. And it's been a bit slow going. It is, there is one individual who is the sort of the coordinator of all the community captains, but there's been some challenges with folks starting then not following through with getting the survey done. There's a few individuals who haven't completed some who have them almost completed. And then some who haven't even started. And they've had a few weeks now with all of the materials and what they're doing is there. These people have been identified at their complexes that they live at so they're doing outreach at their complex. There is supposed to be, or there are supposed to be a few community meetings where people can come to the community meeting to fill out the survey. I think, again, those haven't been scheduled yet.  I'm not part of the meetings. This is done entirely by the renters. There are some folks with English is not their primary language. So our community coordinator is someone who's bilingual and who's been kind of overseeing that work. So we do keep in touch regularly, but I would just say it's slower. It's moving forward, but it's slower than we would have liked. And I want to remind you that, you know, I've had little to do with the survey other than sort of giving some feedback and helping them sort of consolidate some of it. They've been working more directly with family outreach on all of this. The funding is primarily going to family outreach. So it is moving forward, but I don't have a whole lot more, I can say, at this time, I'm hoping that they can at least finish the surveys. Our next meeting is going to be on the 15th. We've been meeting, well, we've been trying to meet every week. It doesn't happen, but often, but more regularly, but our next meeting is scheduled for the 15th. So I'm hoping that I'm hoping that all those surveys that they had for the outreach to their individual complexes will be completed. So that's one thing. The other thing I wanted to announce is that our fellows are here. They're wonderful. It's a Caitlyn Hart and Miguel got there's Ries. And Caitlyn is working on the greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Miguel is working on the building inventory. You know, a little bit of a bumpy start and getting their workstations set up and them having the access that they needed. But today was, they started on Monday today was the first day that they really had access to the network. They provided them with some hard copies of items to sort of get them started. But today was the first day that they were both getting into the network and the data that we have and really just going at it. And I think they're, they're really wonderful. They're very smart. They're really eager to do this work. They will probably, I'll probably ask to have them scheduled for the July 5th agenda so that you can meet them. I'd like you to meet them and to be able to ask them a few questions and for them to give you and a quick update on on the work that they're doing. So that should be for July 5th. And then let's see, as some of you know, I don't know if all of you were aware or there, but last night we had our community, inter municipal community presentation on the Valley Green Energy Community Choice Aggregation. We had 54 attendees, 52 throughout pretty much the entire meeting. So we had questions. Our consultants were very impressed with the caliber of questions that we received. Some people clearly had industry knowledge for sure. So they asked some really tough questions, one of which, and I was really impressed that anyone could ask a question that Paul Gromer could not answer. Very impressive. But, you know, Paul, really great at really sort of really making the information very accessible and clear both he and Marlena did a fantastic job. But they, this is what they do. They're really, really good at it. And I feel like we're super lucky to have them as our consultants. So really thankful that they're with us. So that happened. The community comment period is for 30 days, which started June 1st. It ends June 30th. So again, if anybody is here or watching this at another time, we would really love for people to send us comments about becoming an aggregation, inter-municipal aggregation. The video is posted on the town's YouTube site. So folks can see it. They can search for it by town of Amherst YouTube and then community choice aggregation or by the date of the session, which was June 6th. That's how they can access watching the video. It will also be provided, I think, on our, on our Valley Green Energy page as well. If it isn't already it will be, but the YouTube is always the sort of go to place to see these presentations. Definitely. Can I just add on to what you said about CCA. Absolutely. Kind of the comments all go to the Department of Public Utilities, which is where the decisions are made about what's going to be allowed in the aggregation and what's not. And they'll come back to us, not ECAC, but the team working on it with questions and, you know, suggestions about things that can't be done. And so having public support for certain things in particular are very, going to be very useful for us. One of the particular ones that I can think of is that it's a joint aggregation and that that gives us an opportunity to increase our possibilities for making a difference. Most important is that this is going to goal is to reduce emissions and to increase our the clean energy that comes into town via the mechanisms that exist. And that is not every aggregation's goal. And so the fact that that is our goal. It's very important to show public support for. Yes, as Marlena pointed out, they are the DPU looks very, very carefully at all of the materials that are submitted, which may be in part why it's taking such a long time because it's quite a, quite a huge packet that's submitted. And especially this one being three communities. It'll be pretty hefty of an application package for review and everything is included every comment. So far, anything that any of the three communities have received in terms of any feedback that's even remotely related is been is being sent to the consultant for them to compile. Dwayne, you had a question. Yeah, just wondering, are we too close to the town itself to possibly put in a comment from ecac, given that it's an important part of their carp. I don't see why not I mean you can certainly even as individuals it may even be strength and sort of clarity of what you're looking for and each person submitting a comment. So you could do it as a committee but it might make it even go for I mean I think in addition to individual comments, but I think you could do it either way. I think whatever comments we receive whatever kind of support we receive. I mean I think what you would want to be clear about. I mean it's obvious to us but you just want to be clear that you're a committee of resident members. So, make sure that you know, so that that's clearly stated that you're all residents of Amherst. And as a committee, whatever it is you feel that you, how you want to state or support it. Yeah, I guess the question then for ecac is whether we would want to put in a joint comment not to preclude us from putting in individual. Wayne would you want to you would you want to draft could you draft that for our next meeting. Well that was my fear by what I raised my hand. I wasn't volunteering but I could. Unless Andre feels like she's in a good position to do that would and would want to do that being even closer to it. So the period ends on the 30 where how did these comments go to DPU. So they each community is collecting comments but also the consultant is collecting comments as well so there's, you would get them to the town specifically you can get them to me. Comments go through me, and then I get them to the consultant but we also have a page set up. I think we had it set up on engage Amherst or the we have a Valley Green Energy page. All of the ways in which you can provide comment are listed on the Valley Green Energy page on the town's website, and there should be a link on the main page. There's also an article as well. I think that having an ACAC comment is not going to add that much. I think that our individual comments are going to have more weight with DPU and the only audience is the DPU for this, because we know the town wants to do it. So I wouldn't. I see so the comments are more to assure the town that the residents want it. Not so much the DPU. No, no, DPU. The opposite. Yeah, exactly. Just the opposite. It's the opposite. The town already has committed and and it's the DPU that needs to know that the people customers. Okay, not not the town itself or the committees of the town. Okay, I get that so yeah. And I think that's why I was saying I think individual letters are definitely more effective than just the committee and again you could do both. But I think, you know, you might as well just send individual letters. So as an individual, a letter just saying, I'm excited. I want to participate. That is sufficient. Correct. I think it's I particularly excited about the inter municipality and about leveraging this to for emissions reductions. And when I go to Valley Green Energy Working Group, Stephanie, you're the contact. So is it just an email to you please forward to DPU. Yeah, you just you just could write letter support you don't have to tell me as long as it's a letter of support you don't have to write forward. I know what it's for. So you just basically letter of support for Valley Green Energy is that's I think that's how I would title it. Letter of support for Valley Green Energy. Just state it and if there's specific things that you're looking for like, you know, I think Marlena was talking about sort of things like maybe some people want some more investment in wind or, you know, you could you can be more specific about how you want. What you want the, the aggregation to sort of focus on in terms of renewables. So you can say that. So just a straight up email. Just a straight up email works. That's totally fine. Again, all I'm doing is they come into me and I'm just shooting them to the consultant and I am also keeping my own folder of of them. So we have backup of where they are. The subject line does have to include Valley Green Energy, the name of our aggregation. All right, all of you guys out there in the public, both of you. Don't forget to send your email to or I'm not, I'm not allowed to tell anyone to do anything on this group. I didn't like, yes, okay. If you would like to give Jesse a little power and boy. That's all I have. So I think I've, I've given most of my update. Laura. Nice to see you. You are on the agenda for a discussion of prioritize solar siting. You do not, I'm not so expecting that to happen. I'm in charge of running the meeting today. If you haven't noticed, I'm having way too much fun doing it. Do you want to do anything with that or postpone. Yeah, no, I can just start a quick discussion here. Because it'd be beneficial to. I was just taking some notes here to get the conversation started. So this is, this is stemming from the fact that I think, even if within the town we may have disagreements on solar on land, there's very clear agreement that we want solar on parking lots that we want solar on buildings. We want solar on brownfield type sites. So I think in the interest of our rapidly warming climate, it would be helpful if maybe we focus some of our energy across town on actually developing things instead of trying to figure out what we don't want to develop. So. And I'd be interested in brainstorming with this group, what ecach's role might be a few ideas that I popped into my head, one of course being parking lots. So a couple, a couple things have happened recently. Most importantly, I think is the change to the tax credit. That means that no longer. entities that don't pay taxes. Or that are nonprofit used to not be able to access the tax the 30% tax credit and now that's that's not true anymore so that means that the town can access it. That means that the higher ed institutions probably have more capabilities of accessing it. That also means like faith based institutions, churches and stuff, you know, they might be able to access it more. So we may want to figure out how to communicate that to some of these folks that maybe have looked in the past and determined it was too expensive or not viable for them. At the town level you know we talked about parking lots and I know we've done some studies Stephanie and I'm forgetting all of them but something that we did at the college was we did a did a call for proposals to develop. All of the parking lots and of course they never did it but like, because one parking lot is not going to be like going to be economically viable for a developer but if we could give them three parking lots or for parking lots. They might be interested in it. So just throwing that out there is something to consider whether we want to try to see the viability of that for some of the parking lots that we know are not going to be changing anytime soon. I never thought I had. So that's one idea, the parking lot issue, or just two ideas, sort of getting the word out about the tax change to some of our faith based institutions are higher ed institutions and everybody that maybe wasn't eligible for the tax credit before thinking about the parking lot situation. The other two ideas. I have is that, you know, am her, we're sort of limited in Amherst in terms of large warehouses, large facilities. So we have a ton in Hadley we have a ton in our big box stores we have some in Hadley we have lots of places in South Deerfield East Hampton there's a lot of places in our region, where maybe there's a, there's an opportunity to can to launch a campaign together across and to try to leverage some of the work that, you know, the environment America group has done on warehouse solar, sort of trying to get push for some of that development and it wouldn't be in Amherst but it would of course green our grid in Massachusetts and it would be beneficial to our overarching goal. And then the last point and this is actually influenced by one of the posters I saw at the UMass event from one of Duane students I think or join your name was on the poster about the solar and how, you know, I think your students kind of showed that like a lot of low income, people aren't accessing community solar as much as they should be. And is there something that we can do there as well within Amherst. So I'll pause there, Stephanie I see your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to point out that I think, in terms of reports I think the Cadmus report goes into some very specific sites and more detail. And I think that's a good place to really start. And I know that there's, you know, that's been distributed here. I know there's some looking some investigation of maybe at least a parking canopy at the school. One of the schools so I know that there's at least discussion around it but I think getting sort of right behind those very specific sites that have already been investigated is a really good place to start. Stephanie, how does it work so like, would we. So what what I would have done when I was with the colleges I would have taken that report and I would have put out a call for interest to solar to different developers and say, Hey, here's some I here's some idea come back to us with some ideas on how you might build solar on these sites like is that something the town can do or do you have to go through a different process. It's, it's similar. I mean, I think we've I think we are looking in terms of maybe getting some ideas from some developers on like a canopy, like I said a school canopy development. We would look at consultants and we would ask them to sort of give us some quotes on what they think that might be so it's a similar. It's a similar process. But in terms of, you know, we are, you know, very much and I don't know what the private institutions may not be the same but we are definitely obligated to go out to bid over a certain threshold which a parking canopy absolutely would be. You know, we'd have to go out to bid for a project but we'd, you know, but we develop the scope and all of that, you know, ahead of time so I mean I feel like those are the kinds of things where and, you know, various members this committee has been tapped for those things it's just that they've been tapped at one time. Steve helped with, you know, with developing the RFP for the climate action plan to Wayne's been very instrumental with helping out with the solar assessment. So at various times Lori's been helping with the heat pump developing heat pump program so you know, we tap you at various times it's not always like the entire committee but you all are being tapped for your expertise and then bringing it back to the group I feel like that's a maybe getting off point here but I think that's a good place to start and that process is similar. It's a similar process and I like I said I think it's beginning. The thing about you know with the town is a lot of times things sort of start in the finance realm. Sean Mangano is very involved when there's a list of capital projects, Sean's really kind of on top of that. So, you know, I know he's looking at that Cadmus report, but that's why I'm thinking that if you all want to get behind that and advocate for specific projects to start moving forward, that would be helpful. Yeah, I'm just thinking, maybe it's, you know, instead of us advocating for specific projects it's us advocating for as much solar as we could get, and then having a developer tell us, like, where, because if we do maybe to more than, I guess it just depends on the developer and the consultant but it could be that there's a economics of scale where if we had a couple sites together. It, not next next to each other of course but like if they came in and did a couple sites they would. It would be more beneficial to all involved, but I see. Well Jesse I'm taking over your job now, but Lori. And I just had a question in the comment which is with a new CCA in place. I think we also need to be coordinating with that right because isn't part of the idea there for that group to ultimately develop some of its own. Yeah but that's going to be down the road. I mean I think right you don't want to wait because that could be a couple of years before that's really moving along. You know, just now you've got some opportunities now I wouldn't wait. It just means that we could sort of expand, there'll be more opportunity in the future is how I like to look at it. Okay, good. Thanks.  I think Jesse was first. Okay, sorry. Jesse you're chairing. Okay, I was just going to. And let me just say I really appreciate this conversation I think we should continue this for many, many meetings to sort of see how we can help move solar forward. And particularly focusing on areas that are not necessarily controversial if you will. I guess what I would maybe helpful to Laura and Stephanie you can opine on this as well but I think we can, the Cadmus survey of projects. This is someone could be looked at it independently and separate from Laura which you were saying more in terms of other sites including other towns but other parking lots and so forth of faith community or or private entities within the town because the Cadmus set of a portfolio of projects were all on municipally owned property, which to some extent makes it, I think a different, different process in terms of trying to move those projects forward, compared to a whole another portfolio of projects that might be not, not not municipally controlled. So I just wanted to make that distinction between the two. And I'll just throw in and make that sort of plug for thinking about how how this sub tails with routine maintenance and particularly re roofing projects in the town, which in an ideal world of re roofing means adding insulation, adding structural that the new insulation and solar would demand and then adding solar. So I just made any re roofing project more expensive but dramatically increase the benefit to whoever owns that building whether it's the town or anyone else. I'm thinking about the high school in the middle school at some point they're going to need new roofs, and we can't put solar on those buildings you know three years before a roof needs to be replaced but we can also say that a roof with solar on it that the underlying roof will last far longer because it's not in the sun. Incredible how much longer these rooms last once they're protected by PV. So, a lot of positives there so it's the opportunity of re roofing. And Laura, just so you know what if you do when you're back on YouTube watching the first half of the meeting later tonight. The first public comment was very much in line with what you're saying, sort of like a pitch for protecting natural spaces but also this. We all agree on putting solar in disturbed areas. So it's a great public comment that's worth maybe worth sort of reinforces I think what you just said let's focus on what we all agree we want to do, not on what we want to argue about. I want to say just to last point there and we will move on but like maybe putting us to Dwayne's point putting the municipal own properties aside for a second. What do we think would be a next step for kind of talking through with the community about this sort of campaign idea or about, you know, how do we reach out to the faith, faith based communities. Would we do a meeting would we like maybe and maybe Andrew, I'm looking to you as being more connected to mothers out front and other groups like, is there a group that would take this on that we could support like how might we try to mobilize folks because as our group on its own is not going to be able to do it but I think if we could mobilize with some other local groups we might be able to come up with some ideas. I mean one of the things that we could do as a committee is to send out a letter to all of the faith communities that have buildings. I'm trying to bring them know about the new text incentives available. And perhaps something like that to other groups. So, I think there is a role for easy AC. The other, you know grassroots organizations would be more helpful in reaching out to homeowners and perhaps the renters which is something that we were talking about earlier in reference to energy efficiency. So, great, thanks. I love what under just said because I was thinking a similar thought is, you know the education piece, and I think to Laura's comment earlier, when you said, you know these organizations don't necessarily know about this, that you all, as a group are very respected in the community and you have the expertise and the knowledge base that could really help spread awareness about it and I know it wouldn't be you alone but if you created some kind of an outreach campaign. You have some sustainability funds now that could sort of help with possibly materials having a meeting. You know, working in conjunction with some of the other existing agencies within the town to really get some of this information out to those relevant folks who aren't aware. So, I just wanted to say that you know we have some funding now. And having a very strategic campaign would be a great thing to think about. Okay, I'll think more on this and maybe start to, to outline a little letter before the next meeting if I have the time. Awesome. We did staff updates EC AC member updates. I'd like to go first.  I need to put my energies into the more state regional efforts and taking some time off made me realize that I was doing too much. Good for my health and probably not good for all of the entities that I had committed to. And I also am open to staying on through the summer when it might be hard to get a quorum or or until their replacements for Vasu and I. And, you know, that that's Stephanie said, well, you know, terms kind of end in June, but on an interim look, you know, in an interim way, I could do that. And I think that we should put on the agenda for the next meeting, especially appreciation for Vasu for this chair ship, which he did an excellent job of. And that does not need to be my last meeting so we can just focus on boss. Wow. Yep. And sorry to hear that, Andre, but appreciate your joining us for us and as an at the part of the inaugural team members here so but sad to see you go from this committee but not not quite yet so the announcement was in our packet, but for the sort of bylaw working group meeting this Friday, we have some more of an educational meeting if you will, with interest amongst the working group, particularly on do you have a speaker or Agrivoltaics. And so we have a set of speakers for an hour and a half. This is this Friday at 1130. And we have a speaker Ethan winter from American Farmland Trust. We have a team, American Farmland Trust has a lot of work on dual use around the country, or Agrivoltaics I should say, Jake Marley, our own hometown solar dual use developer, Hyperion systems out of Amherst will speak about his presence with farmers and particularly on small scale Agrivoltaics. And then Jerry Polano from MDR mass Department of Ag resources will talk a bit about the state program and the rules and regulations. And so it'll be a combination of comments. Maybe some formal presentations from the speakers and then Q amp a and discussion with the working group and with with the, with anybody. It's an open, more of an open educational thing like we've done with ecac. So, welcome at anybody from ecac for sure to join in that. Thank you for the solar working bylaw working group is is on the town website. It's also it's also on the, it's on the flyer. Absolutely it's on the flyer. Yes. That's a great event. Circle back, Andrew, will you keep us posted on what we should be thinking about from the state at the state level and the regional level. That would be great. Sure. I'd be happy to do that. Yeah, sometimes I think you know you'll know this group you'll know what we're capable of or not capable of. It would be a great conduit to send us things that we might not, you know, we can happy and amourst. Keep us keep us in mind. ECAC other ECAC member updates. Maybe I do have a question a follow up question for Joanne and I don't think it's related specifically to but I'm wondering if it's come up at all in the in the solar working group discussions about the I don't know how to say this in a way that's not going to. So, some, I mean, private farmers can reap benefits from converting their land to solar. And I get a little concerned with some of the debate about that that doesn't include those people. You know, like what is the financial driver for some farmers to maybe sell land for solar or to put solar on land so that they can collect some tax revenue for a set number of years. So they don't have to sell land like there's a there's a lot of nuances to it that I think get like there was just like some article in the paper about Hadley and how it's all getting taken up and it's like well those are people that own that land that are doing it for reasons that we may not fully understand or appreciate so anyway, just wondering if that's a conversation to be had or if we're bringing bringing those folks into the discussion at all. Certainly for the forum on Friday, there's an outreach effort to invite farmers and so forth and landowners to that discussion. That being said, you know, Friday in the middle of the day of the springtime and early summer, not a great time for farmers to be on zoom, but we'll see if any are in attendance. You know, I would say that and obviously our working group meeting is they can provide input to us at any at any point. But yeah, no, these are the questions we're grappling with. So, you know, in terms of, you know, how do we, how do we accommodate, you know, solar and ag is a complicated and nuanced issue as you know, there are situations where farmers can make a clear case that dedicating some of their land to solar will help maintain the rest of it in farming from a financial perspective. There are, you know, in some cases with farmland that's protected, there's limitations of what they can do in terms of how much solar they can put on their farmland. There are lots of rules around agriboltaics which we'll delve into on Friday with regard to what conditions and the fact what conditions of farm situations are eligible for agriboltaics and what the restrictions are and the requirements of the farming to stay in farming and so forth. But yeah, so we're kind of looking at those issues and tradeoffs of trying to preserve farmland and food production as a vital part of Amherst as well. I also recognize that that property owners have their have rights as well in terms of making determinations but but yet all those things are sort of what we're trying to grapple with with with the you know the blunt tool tool of zoning. In our case there's other other rules and policies that might be appropriate here but we're looking at it strictly from the zoning perspective. That's helpful. I just came across, I just came across a report last night from the American farmland trust that it's titled potential placement of utility scale solar installations on agricultural lands in the US to 2040 put out just in November of 2022 so it's pretty new. So I threw it yet. They discuss a lot about the trends of solar development on farmlands and kind of their concerns about it but what caught my eye is they have a outline of smart solar, and I haven't seen the whole part of it yet, but sort of guidelines for achieving sustainable energy and food production. And so they have this smart solar SM superscript. I'm not sure what that means for guiding principles anyways, I will send this to Stephanie. If it looks good I'll finish reading it tonight and if it looks good I'll send it to Stephanie to share with everybody. Yeah, I was my first started honestly it's like oh American farmland trust we know what they're going to be thinking but it turned out they know that I think they're actually how do you integrate solar and farming in a way that benefits the farmers food production and, and people around the world. So it's, it's, it's, I mean, aft is generally actually very not not I shouldn't say very but is interested in agriboltaics as a means to preserve farm farming. Yeah, you know, I would caution that farming in the US, generally is quite a bit different than farming in Amherst and even Massachusetts matter. I mean utility scale. I think I don't know how they define utility scale, but it's probably beyond the size of farms we have here but nonetheless it some of that could be very useful to us. That reminded me the one of things that will be excited to see is in the Gza mapping product. I believe they'll be mapping out soils. Important agricultural soils. And as that thought came up I was going to ask Stephanie if there's any updates in the timeline for the web web based mapping tools to be available. Yeah, I have a there's a draft that Dwayne is part of the technical team is going to, and Mike and I are going to meet hopefully early next week. So, and again, the soils layer is just the soils layer that exists that's been done so it's not anything that the town has created a specific soils layer just to be clear that yes, yes. That's all. But yes it is.  So maybe next week is that sort of your tentative next meeting, perhaps, not next week, but next meeting. So I'm going to meet with Dwayne will see I mean depending on, you know, Dwayne's feedback to Mike. You know, and if there are things he might want to sort of tweak a little bit. And then we'll get it out to the two committees, both ECAC and the solar bylaw working group. Great. Thank you. Any other ECAC updates? Okay. Next meeting is agenda is so next meeting is Vasu's last, is that right. Right. So, So a party for Vasu be on the agenda. And a And maybe, and I would assume the annual report putting that to bed. And then the updates for the transportation and pace. And I would be willing to guess that I think there might be a specialized code update. Given how fast this ought to be moving. Hopefully I'll have an update on that. You think we might have an update on transportation since we missed that this time. Yeah, that's what we said those would be transportation and pace. Okay. Oh, you did say that. Sorry. Yeah, that's okay. Clacking of my keyboard was too. Super. Well, let's not overwhelm ourselves with agenda items. Public comment. Anybody. Yay. What do we have? Martha. Martha. Fantastic. And Eric. Go ahead, Martha. You can. Martha Hanner. I live in district by South Amherst. I am a member of the solar bylaw working group. But of course I speak as an individual. And so I want to say first that, you know, from listening to this whole discussion, I'm really impressed with how many different things.  And of course, what's striking is that each individual effort takes so much investment of time. And the real challenge is how do you move forward on any of them. Stephanie, I think works 36 to 40 hours out of every 24 day.  And so that's certainly a big challenge. I wanted to comment on a few individual things. I wondered, Laurie and Jesse, if it's possible to get a copy of the slides on the stretch code and I think that by now they are the public accessible. Yeah, I think they came in, we saw them last time they came in recently. So I think that'll get Stephanie that does that get posted. The last meeting, they should be in the last meeting's packet. They were available. Yeah, I don't know if they were in the packet because I only finished them like right before the meeting. Okay, so let me. You typically I try to include them but if I didn't, I would include them next time. I could include them next time I could include them in the last packet, the one that was sent for the last packet. But did you revise it Laurie. I only took out the extra slides at the end and there were some questions I didn't do a lot of revision I don't think I did any revision I mostly just took the slides that I showed last time and cut off the stuff at the end of the packet that I didn't show. Even though from the DOER presentation and there's a really nice presentation on both specialized and the stretch code that's the part I took out I took out the updated stretch code part from the DOER and then added a couple slides, specifically relevant to Amherst. Do you have then a reference link to that. I do but I can't put it in the. Yeah, is that. I can look at it, Laurie, if you just send whatever version you think is ready I can, I can put it in the next meeting packet, and I can get it to Martha now. I said that one to you already earlier today, Stephanie. So, I did not see it. Sorry. It was maybe an hour before the meeting. Okay, so alright so there's the most recent is sent today. I'm just making a note to myself and Martha I can send that to you and I'll just put it in your next ECAC packet. Yes. And then regarding the discussion of the parking lots and solar canopies, the niche report has a whole list of potential parking lots. That was the other public report has a whole list. And also it's interesting the niche report lists one specific 17 acre ground field. That's off of route 116 across from Hampshire college. I think that says that might have been an old gas station or something and my impression is it's still owned by Hampshire college and so Steve I wondered whether there was had been any thoughts on the colleges to whether that could be implemented for solar, particularly now that nonprofits can get rebates. I have thought about that. I was, I think that's where I learned that there was a pound field there and yes there was a gas station right along 116 kind of opposite the Hampshire college admissions building. I think it was 20 plus years ago a tank, a old gas tank was pulled. The site is being monitored I don't think there's any contamination but it still falls under the brownfield. Yeah, I was very interested in that as a possibility. One challenge though is there's a fair bit of wetlands. There's a stream that flows the east side of that parcel. And it's also classified as some rare endangered species habitats. So there'd have to be some work around that. I did bring it up to some of the finance people about a year ago and they basically said, well that could be interesting but we don't really have the capacity to develop any further projects at this time. I just learned today that our current treasurer is moving on from Hampshire College so we'll be even more shorthanded in the near future. But if in my dreams it would be if there's some way that Hampshire could sort of lease that land and an organization could come in and maybe maybe do a community solar kind of development. That could be pretty cool. Yeah, and then I add into the, to the valley green energy as a local source right. Sure if that yeah if the timing is right so yeah if anybody knows of an organization that has the capacity to do that and might develop a plan and then pitch it to Hampshire. I could help facilitate the connections to Hampshire College people. And, and I listened to that presentation last night and thought it was excellent and Stephanie great job as moderator to but but the consultants were just so knowledgeable and so clear and what they were explaining I sure would recommend it to you know tell all your friends and neighbors to listen to that recording but yeah and for a final point then regarding the farmer and and solar is I have learned that many farmers in Amherst are renters. They rent the property they're farming on. And so they have a concern that oh suppose the owner decides that he or she could make more money by putting solar on the property then what they're paying in rent and then there goes their livelihood. And so that that this is a concern among some of the farmers here in Amherst. Okay, well, thank you again for all your good work. Thank you Martha. And Eric has his hand up. Eric can go ahead and unmute. Thank you Stephanie and thank you. I was very gratified by a number of comments at this afternoon's meeting Janet McGowan's comment on preserving natural working land of course is something very dear to my heart. The comment on conservation reminds me and how the in the 1973 oil embargo that the US was being crushed by we were, we were universally encouraged to be conservative to turn our thermostats up in the summer and down in the winter. We were encouraged to conserve gas. Speed limits were reduced so I think there is something to be said for conservation, small numbers always add up and they may not be the huge impact that we're looking for but they do add up. Laura, your comment about regionalization, which I've, I know we at SmartSol Amherst have been pushing for the to enlarge our thinking and make it then kind of begin to impose a larger, more regional, nothing at the very least, maybe statewide approach, given that Laura you mentioned the you showed us the New York Times front page. Clearly, the world is as, as I forget it's named Friedman, Tom Friedman said the world is flat. We are, we are all neighbors to each other. So I was very very gratified to hear on the idea of regional, more regional approach. It also kind of for me begs the question about here we are living in a town with that more than doubles in size. When we, when we add our students into our overall aggregate population, and why we can't work as partners with our three campuses. I'd heard recently that Amherst College and this was, this is, I can't say I fact checked it, but Amherst College was looking largely at a geothermal operation, leaving thus leaving large arrays of parking lots, potentially to be why we, why we can't talk to our colleges and the university about what their plans are given that we invite members of the college community to formally and when town meeting was functioning to run and be participants in town meeting to be on town committees. I probably run for town council, why we can embark on a conversation about what the plans are to help mitigate the extreme consequences of climate change, or what the strategies for doing that are with our campuses. I was delighted to hear Laura talk about regionalization and go as far as talking about South Deerfield, Deerfield, etc. We, and from cut from working in concentric circles out from town hall, we get to UMass Amherst College and Hampshire college soon and then we do to South Deerfield so I would encourage us to think about this as not simply a specific town, the population of 24,000 people as our students that we have tens of thousands of students and campus and many hundreds of acres of of campus to be harnessed as well so again thank you very much for looking at this from a 360 degree problem solving issue. Thank you. That's that I appreciate just and a quick reminder Eric to we have Wayne is highly connected to the UMass planning process, Steve at Hampshire and more along no longer at Amherst College. And he wrote the plan, and, and which is public and available on their website to learn exactly how they're going about all that so I think that that connection is we're, we're, we're certainly aware and excited about counting on what the colleges are doing. But it seems to me that we have in the, this process of the ACAC and Southern Bottle Working Group, the process has kind of factored out the kind of embarking on a strategy that folds in the campuses as part of the solution to our town issue. Towns region state country world issue, but I wondered what you know, can that be not reignited because it's not been ignited but can that be ignited and can that be part of the strategy of how we can. Hannah just mentioned this, the niche report which I've spoken about many times has had and not only the, the, the Clark house and Fort River the middle school rooftops but the 17 acre ground field that, that Martha said which is, which is across from the admissions office on 116 so I'm wondering if we all can given that we are a town and gown community, whether we can have a town and gown. It's a planning process that helps us kind of get to where we want to be and in mitigate helping to mitigate our greenhouse gas admissions. I got it. Got it. That makes sense. Does anyone else. Do we address that or we move ahead. Miss placed my agenda in the melee. I don't. Jesse I don't know if Martha still has her hand up again, or didn't. Oh, thank you. I'm going to need to go. Lars here so we still have a quorum. Thanks. The next meeting. Great. I don't know. It's Martha's hand down now. I wasn't clear. Martha just put her hand down. So I think, I think, I think she was just stretching. So I think, well, I think we could adjourn. Thank you all very much for everything you do. And have a great two weeks. Thanks for stepping in Jesse on the lead today. Anything to get out of doing the minutes. Bye all.


What I hope that many of the delegates to the Democratic Convention understand is that the national election is an open process. Guess what? Independence vote in that process. It turns out that we are overwhelmingly winning the independent vote. And let me also make it clear so that there is no confusion. We are in this campaign to win and become the Democratic nominee. But you know what? Unusual things happen in politics. And with your help, we are going to win the pledged delegates. And with your help, superdelegates may well reach the conclusion that Bernie Sanders will be the strongest candidate against Donald Trump or any other Republican. Delegate that we can so that when we go to Philadelphia in July, we're going to have the votes to put together the strongest progressive agenda that any political party has ever seen. Our job, whether we win or whether we do not win, is to transform not only our country but the Democratic Party to open the doors of the Democratic Party to working people and young people and senior citizens in a way that does not exist today.


Hi there shipmates. I'm around with John Kirby, the Navy's chief of information, and I wanted to take just a couple of minutes to talk to you about some of the sexual assault prevention and response and accountability initiatives that Navy leadership has put into place. You may have seen some of this in press coverage over the last few days. For instance, the CNO has decided to restrict alcohol sales on our bases. We are putting resiliency counselors, trained certified sexual assault response coordinators on all our big deck ships, and the Secretary of the Navy has ordered the hiring of more than 50 new NCIS investigators and staff to try to help us speed up the investigative process. We're also going to, starting today, post the results of courts-martial across the Navy. We're going to start with the first six months of this year, from January to June, and then we're going to do it there after monthly to include the results of courts-martials for sexual assault offenders. The idea here is to show that the judicial system is working, we are prosecuting these crimes, and that we're able and willing to be transparent about what the results are. We are going to do this monthly from here on after. And again, this is really about trying to be accountable and transparent about a very serious problem and a very diligent judicial process in the Navy. More on this as things continue to roll out. Thanks very much.