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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Energy Committee - 08/10/2022South Burlington Energy Committee Meeting Minutes - 2022-08-10 Approved 9/14/2022 Committee members present: Tim Perrin (Chair), Ethan Goldman, Keith Epstein, Ken Pulido, Sam Swanson, Steve Crowley, MJ Reale, Frans van Boden, Ahmad Abdel-Fattah, Robert Meader, Carolyn (Carrie) McLaughlin Committee members absent: None City staff present: Ilona Blanchard, Lou Bresee Minutes from July 13 were unanimously approved: Keith moved, Steve seconded Ilona explained that, besides electing a treasurer, we should decide whether to align our annual elections with the appointment dates (July - June) in which case we should re-affirm our selections (which were currently intended to be calendar-year appointments) as running through June 2023, or else plan to have officers step down in December and hold new elections. Treasurer's role was explained by Ilona: responsible for tracking funds in parallel with the City bookkeeper, but expenses still need to be approved by a vote of the committee and disbursed by city staff. Tim noted that Marcy Murry has been serving in that role for years, and is willing to help get the new treasurer up to speed with the documentation. There is currently around $7,500 in the fund. The planning and Zoning department typically provides some funds for committee activities, but those are allocated by request only. Keith nominated Ken to be treasurer from now until the end of July 2023, Ken agreed to serve, seconded by Sam, and unanimously approved. Since the whole committee is present, we did introductions. The work plan is in the 2022 meetings folder, with an alias added to each month’s folder. Tim introduced the work plan and led a review of progress on items: ● LI weatherization: CVOEO is willing to partner with the City in outreach and signing up participants. Multi-family is harder due to the split incentive issue. Tim asked if there is a registry of rental properties, Ilona suggested asking for an export of the tax assessor’s database, though it might not be complete. ● State-wide button-up campaign will be launched in Oct. and the committee can support it in SB. Nat Gas rates are rising 9.5% which will make it harder on many VT’ers but will make weatherization more attractive. Keith: what’s in the IRA that might help to support weatherization; can we get local accountants more knowledgeable about tax rebate opportunities. Could be an Other Paper article or promoted by banks in monthly promo flyers. Tim: Utilities don’t want to promote tax advice since it’s not their domain. Steve: This should be a state-wide effort. Tim: National registry of available incentives exists: dsire. Keith: This is complicated for homeowners! Sam: RE companies support customers with incentives. Carrie: Sun Common could help to promote new incentives. Ilona: Might be someone at Galagher Flynn since they are a large accounting firm in SB. Keith: Can we get someone from Galagher Flynn to write the article? Ilona suggested some names [Mike Keller… Maybe Tim captured?] ● Keith: still posting items on FB, many in the queue but keep sending them in! Local and national items are welcome. Coralee is not back from leave, so Ilona will find someone else to help us make website (SB city) updates. ● Update on CAP: in draft form. Survey has over 100 responses; survey results are in the GDrive and CCRPC contractors are working on compiling them. ● The 2021 City Council resolution requires annual reporting of climate action; how can we help? Sam: this has often been ignored in the past. Lou: there are things happening Bartlett Bay) that can be highlighted. Sam: we can offer to help. Ilona: the city staff is aware and working on climate issues (and equity) but the documentation is lacking. SBEC could help to collect info for this report. Tim will follow up with Jessie to find the best way for the SBEC to help. ● Ken: H518 municipal fuel-switching bill passed, funds are available, RFP was issued for contractor to help identify projects. Up to $500k per community is available ($40M total) - think it’s focused on buildings, but not sure. Wheeler building could be a candidate, but it’s an expensive conversion. Lou: how much is it worth to save CO2? Ken: the city should develop metrics. This could take the form of assigning a cost of carbon. Steve: VCC set $123/ton but didn’t specify where to be used, with a 2% discount rate for future reductions. Ken: let’s be consistent with GWSA, use those costs, and have the city use that as part of the cost-benefit analysis. ● Steve: didn’t we agree to submit the capstone proposal? Ethan and Steve will work on this. ● POWER-D.city update: gathering data phase. Some discussion about inconsistent goals and baselines; agreed that the details are less important than showing that we made significant progress. Steve shared some of the history for those inconsistencies. ● High school project: Frans: sent emails but point-of-contact (Gary) moved on. Ilona: maybe contact the science teacher. Keith: Matt Dransfield and Phil Surks have both been interested to talk with us in the past. The funding (~$15k) is not really enough to do the whole project. Frans will talk with Carrie. Probably need to talk to Gary’s replacement. Ilona: that person will have a full plate, so might want to talk to some other stakeholders to get traction. ● How to get community engagement? Ilona: two FB forums to promote surveys. Ahmed: can we leave the survey open until school starts? Parents could be approached by children. Ethan: Feedback will have been incorporated into the CAP before that time, but it’s still possible to gather feedback for future revisions and implementation work. ● Ahmed: need a professional project manager; could contractor to implement and oversee. City could be an implementor and hire entities to execute. Ken: crux is getting funding. Ilona: this worked with the EV charging grant. IRA has funding; so does the infrastructure bill (coming this fall). Ahmed: can the implementation plan be fully budgeted so that we can seek funding? Will the CCRPC’s implementation plan get us far enough? ● ARPA funding recommendations: the Council will be looking at survey results the first week in Sept. Will the following week be soon enough for our recommendations? Need to confirm whether we need a special meeting or if we can wrap up at the next meeting. ● Keith went to the planning commission and advised that they update bike rack requirements; PC agreed and it’s on their work plan to update rules: one rack is probably no longer enough. Asked for volunteers to help support PC in that effort; Sam volunteered. ● Announcements: Ilona: bike/ped bridge over I-89 public meeting (feedback on 3 concepts and pathways) on Aug 31 @ 6:30 in Auditorium at 180 Market. Food and open house (chatting with planners) at 5:30 and child care, please ask for translation services in advance.