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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Energy Committee - 04/03/2014 SBEC meeting minutes 4/3/14 7PM Members Present: Don Cummings, Peter Tousley (Chair), Marcy Murray, Karen McKenny, Keith Epstein, Brendan Taylor Staff Present: Ilona Blanchard, Jim Barlow Public Present: Pat Nowak, Patty Tashiro, Rosanne Greco , Susan Sobczak 1. Minutes for March not approved---awaiting corrections 2. Public Comment. Roseanne Greco-traffic lights---changing traffic lights to flashing during typically low-traffic hours can decrease energy consumption. Traffic engineers report quoted. Burlington has the majority of their lights flashing. Traffic light engineer David Garen would be happy to come and speak to us. Suggestion to have the Chair contact Justin Rabideaux and David Garen to have a meeting. 3. Open Meetings - Jim Barlow—City Attorney—Invited to discuss the open meeting law. Detail in meeting minutes issue. General requirements - applies to public bodies (we are one). The law is triggered by the quorum of the members together discussing the business of our committee or taking action --- these meetings need to be warned. 3 different levels of notice required. Regular meeting –set out the date, time, and place -needs to be posted once. Next level—special meeting outside of the time of regular meetings—law requires it be published in public in 3 places and publically announced in the press. Next level—emergency meeting only to address “an imminent situation” unlikely to happen—these don’t need to be warned. Some public notice as soon as reasonably possible is required. Can be a sign outside the door that a meeting is occurring. Any action taken at this meeting should be on the next agenda to discuss or ratify the discussion at the next meeting. Minutes: All meetings require minutes. Law requires a “true” indication of the business of the meeting. Include all members that are present. All other active participants should be in the minutes as well. All motions and minutes reflect what we did. All votes recorded and member who makes motion is noted. A second is not required. Any action that we take must be approved by the majority of the members not just the majority of those present. How do we handle people that are working on a project that has been approved by the full committee? (10 members) so if 6 or more are present then it has to be warned. If more than 6 warn the meeting, take minutes and discuss at the next meeting . We meet monthly—if something comes up between meetings that needs to be addressed can we email the group to see if someone has some expertise to address the issue? ---Work should not be done this way as it is not public---this would be considered a meeting. The person asking the question should have it asked through the staff member. Just respond to the staff member. Routine items like developing an agenda can be done via email and discussed. Scheduling— trying to find a date that everyone can meet does not apply to the open meeting law. 4. GUEP Website – Keith Epstein——Many meetings taking place regarding organizational issues, community engagement, marketing agency, web url has been purchased ---a web domain energyprize.org. Keith would like to get this page up and running. Hostgator.com is a shared host site. Keith would like to request that the committee buy this host site at 4 dollars a month for 3 years for the GUEP. A budget needs to be developed so we can request additional funds related to marketing. Keith will have some numbers by the next meeting. Motion: that we support funding for the host site for the GUEP for 3 years---motion made by Don Cummings Further discussion---tech question—word press or build from scratch…word press is available. Vote—passed unanimously. 200 ideas generated from the launch parties—work is being done to categorize these lists. Pat Nowak—will be going to the meeting in DC for the GUEP—she is interested in bringing back information on how much of this will work. Getting schools involved----reach out to who you know—schools ---community groups---rotary-- --we need to reach out to pull the community together. Keep writing articles for the OP. 5. Vermontivate---Karen McKenny---sign up and let me know if you need any help—Launch party tonight 6. Green Up day---will there be booths or tables allowed? Karen will work the table for SBEC--- GUEP---energy efficiency materials, go commuter challenge, etc..can public entities have booths? Roseanne will check into it. 7. Inter-committee issues---topics or issues paper that each committee would contribute to--- issue..how would we keep it up to date? This would not work per open meeting law. Do we have liaisons to other committees? ---not currently----how can we tap into expertise or share ours? Can energy be added to planning commission meeting agenda? This request has been made. We worked on the comprehensive plan and submitted it. We made a recommendation on the traffic for market street, we made a recommendation re: form based code. The knowledge that backs up our recommendation is missing. An expert from our committee would like to go and talk to other groups about our recommendations. The planning commission is not soliciting comments at this point as they are working through the comments they have already received. We have asked to be put on their agenda. 8. Other business: Is there a way for us to support our energy efficient businesses in SB with an energy committee “seal” of approval? We could recognize them with our seal and they would support us and our GUEP. Peter requested to come up with a list of companies that we could honor. Energy Honor Roll. Efficiency VT certifies already..lets look into this group of places. Energy honor roll for residents as well. Get together once a quarter to celebrate. Other Paper shout out to have residents nominate themselves or others. Topics for next agenda: Jake Jurmain---Data analysis for efficiency Vermont--- Tim Barrett ---LDR review Motion to adjourn the meeting by Don Cummings No discussion Unanimously approved