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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Energy Committee - 05/11/2022South Burlington Energy Committee Approved Meeting Minutes May 11, 2022 Committee members present: Steve Crowley, Keith Epstein, Ethan Goldman, Marcy Murray, Ken Pulido, MJ Reale(scribe), Sam Swanson Committee members absent: Kate Bailey, Tim Perrin City staff present: Ilona Blanchard, Lou Bresee Community members present: none Convene: Ethan called the meeting to order via Zoom around 6:45 p.m. and MJ agreed to scribe. Ilona attended at City Hall. Minutes. Keith moved to approve the draft minutes from April. Ken seconded the motion. The motion was approved with 6 voting in favor. New committee applicants Discussed reaching out to community to generate interest in getting new members on our committee. Accepting applications now and interested folks should apply asap. City Council will start interviewing June 6 so deadline is June 1. MJ will post city wide on Front Porch Forum and reach out to high school students (15 and older) that expressed interest in working with SBEC. Ethan will look at some of the letters he received from students to CAP task force and perhaps reach out to them as well. Website/Facebook Keith has been updating Facebook often. MJ reached out to Coralee Holm about migrating the content from old website to city’s website in March and has not heard back. She will reach out again. Ethan recommended that we consider how to link to the CAP task force website – how can they complement one another. SBHS solar bike shelter Before Andrew left SBEC (to join Planning Commission) he recommended that Kate call Gary from the school district to see where things stand. However, Kate has also stepped down from SBEC to join the School Board. Keith had a discussion with Mike O’Brien Head Electrician at the School District to make him aware of this potential project. Someone from SBEC needs to review how things were left with Andrew and reach out to Gary and Mike. FY23 Workplan for the City Council The workplan is now finalized for the FY23 year (July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023). Ilona will include the FY23 work plan in the Council’s update on our strategies, policies, and priorities based on that plan. Capstone Internship/Service Learning MJ reviewed the feedback from UVM. We missed the May 1 deadline for Internships. For service-learning projects the students partner in creating the project and are encouraged to bring in their own knowledge and skills and discuss with the partnering organization what the project will be. Process: If SBEC has ideas in mind, we can contact Laura Edling – Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources. There is no application for NR 206, the capstone RSENR course. Timeline: They are looking for projects for the Fall semester in early August, for the Spring semester in early January and for the summer semester in late May or June. Ethan has some ideas for a project that he will write up and send to MJ. These relate to gathering data to help make a case for more work from city related to rooftop solar and Act 174. https://publicservice.vermont.gov/content/act-174-recommendations-and-determination- standards Lou pointed out that we want to make sure that this project is in line with our stated goals and comprehensive plan. Steve pointed out that we need to be aware of what the students want to get out of the project and that it be designed with the students. Climate Action Plan Ethan updated the group that the task force has debated and approved a list of actions. They are moving into discussions of renewables, land use, solid waste, thermal, transportation etc. He has received essays and letters of support from students. SBEC discussed the importance of community outreach and engagement to support the CAP efforts. They/we want to hear from the public. MJ asked whether the CAP task force needs to weigh in on our efforts up front so they are in line with what they need. Steve felt that was not necessary. Lou asked about clarification on how SBEC and CAP task force are aligned – together, separate, aside? The group talked about a public hearing, a webinar and a survey as ways to reach out to community. We discussed getting a survey distributed sooner than later so it can inform CAP task force. We can create an online survey and put the link on FPF. Keith suggested we attend SoBu Thursday nights with a table and ask people to fill out the survey. Ilona recommended that Keith reach out to Holly on city staff about that. We can also consider asking about doing the same survey at Friday night Common Roots events. MJ will ask Carol McQuillen about this once we are sure we want to do a survey. We want consistency of questions across all distribution points. What questions do we want to ask? MJ started a rough draft for the group to edit -delete, add to, comment on etc. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wfTM6qNqV3xuBSn04rveIbeC1xrngXuW/edit#gid=1 259489064 POWER-D.city/Dude Solutions Ethan updated the group. The pilot has started and there is a public dashboard available. ARPA Funds We should create a document for city council with our recommendations. The group reviewed the spreadsheet with suggestions on how to use the funds. Ethan felt we needed more time to discuss the options and narrow them down for presentation to the city council. After the meeting, Ilona sent an email asking each SBEC member to choose their top 3 choices on this spreadsheet. We can also put our choices on the google drive spreadsheet in preparation for a special meeting to discuss. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V71Cj4fvD6CygdQIN6imFLhviHmH7lTOeimVR45UT Ww/edit#gid=724716810 MJ sent a doodle poll to SBEC members to determine when most people can meet for one hour or less to discuss ARPA funds. We need to pin down the special meeting soon in order to warn the meeting publicly. Additionally, Ilona asked everyone for to weigh in on their top 3 choices via email directly to her. Adjourn: Meeting was adjourned approximately at 8:45 pm. Special Meeting: Wednesday May 25 @ noon. Next Regular Meeting: Wednesday, June 8 at 6:30pm.