Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Energy Committee - 10/21/2013South Burlington Energy Committee Meeting Minutes Members Present Absent Marc Companion X Don Cummings X Keith Epstein X Fred Kosnitsky X Karen McKenny X Marcy Murray X Sam Swanson X Brendan Taylor X Peter Tousley X Laura Waters X Date: October 21, 2013 Meeting Location: Upstairs CR, City Hall City Staff: Ilona Blanchard Members of the Public: None Start Time: 7:00pm Motion made by and seconded by and approved unanimously. Motion: To approve minutes for October 7, 2013 regular meeting Moved by: Karen McKenny Seconded by: Keith Epstein Approval: Yes Notes: Committee Member Observations Karen McKenny reported that her energy audit (done on Button Up day as an open house) showed higher than average electricity usage. Their whole family has taken this as a challenge and through many actions have reduced their usage by about half! Congratulations Karen and family. Sam Swanson, the current Chair, indicated that he will be out of town on November 4 and therefore unable to lead the next regular meeting, the last in his four month term of service. Karen McKenny, the current Vice Chair, will chair the November 4 meeting. Karen has indicated she would prefer not to become the next Committee chair because she has some unexpected new responsibilities at home that are demanding a lot of her time. The Committee will elect a Chair and Vice Chair for the next four months at the Nov 4 meeting. Public Comments: There were no guests present. Committee Review of the City’s Draft Comprehensive Plan Paul Connor described the work underway to update and to edit the Comprehensive Plan. The Planning Commission is seeking to integrate recommendations from Interim Zoning and to simplify the draft by reducing the number of objectives by eliminating redundancies, vague or conflicting objectives or those that the city is doing as part of their everyday business process. In the end they would like a simpler prioritized list of goals, objectives and implementation strategies because a streamlined Plan will be easier to understand and is more likely to have greater impact.Keeping in mind the criteria Paul described for simplifying the Comprehensive Plan, the committee discussed what changes in the draft Plan may be necessary to ensure that the energy is addressed effectively by steps later taken to address the overall goals, objectives and implementation strategies. The committee members offered comments that urged the following changes: • Look for ways to ensure that energy service is sustained for critical facilities during emergency conditions when normal service from the electricity grid and other energy suppliers is interrupted (as a result of storms and other emergency conditions) Energy is one of those issues that should span all segments of the plan – it should not be addressed only in a standalone Energy section. • We should have more discussion about energy in the Vision section. • Each section of the plan should have energy reflected in its Objectives and Strategies to ensure that implementation serves key Plan energy goals and objectives. o For example, the transportation section already has many Objectives and Strategies that will help reduce energy. • Consider adding a new second energy objective that says that S. Burlington should reduce energy use in Transportation, Commercial, Residential and Municipal Operations. • Consider adding a new Objective or Strategy in the Energy Section that calls on the city to consider the energy impacts in every decision made. • We should try to move many of the strategies that we have proposed from the Energy Section of the Plan to the sections where they best apply. • We should suggest changes to other Plan sections to address reducing energy use and generating energy. We discussed and agreed that a more thorough review of the entire draft plan is necessary. To that end, we ask each member of the committee to do a quick review of the entire document and look for opportunities to integrate energy thinking. Having all Committee members read the draft plan will strengthen our knowledge of the relationship of our energy objectives to the overall Comprehensive Plan for the City’s future. The Committee concluded the meeting by asking all members of the Committee to review the plan to identify places in other sections where changes should be made to address energy specifically, with an objective of communicating clearly where there may be important energy implications associated with the Plan’s other (i.e., non-energy) goals and objectives. In addition, we agreed to ask the following members to take a closer look at a specific section: • Social Infrastructure Marc • Green Infrastructure Karen • Blue Infrastructure Marcy • Grey Infrastructure Keith • Housing Don • Future Land Use Sam We also asked those Committee members not present at this meeting to identify and review one of the Plan sections and communicate their comments. Ilona Blanchard committed to forwarding a PDF format document that we can mark up. The Committee requests that each of us provide comments by October 30. Don Cummings and Ilona Blanchard will assemble a master document that includes all the changes for Committee review at the next regular meeting on November 4. Meeting Adjourned at 8:50 PM Motion: To adjourn Moved by: Keith Epstein Seconded by: Don Cummings Approval: Yes Adjourned at: 8:50 p.m. Next meeting: Monday, November 4 at 7 PM at City Offices.