Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - Energy Committee - 08/07/2014Monday, August 7, 2014 7:00 pm South Burlington Municipal Offices, 575 Dorset Street South Burlington Energy Commiee Approved Meeng Notes/Minutes Members Present: Don Cummings, Karen McKenny, Keith Epstein, Sam Swanson, and by phone for 15 minutes, Fred Kosnitsky Members Absent: Brendan Taylor. Marcy Murray, and Marc Companion Staff Present: Ilona Blanchard Public Present: Linda McGinnis and Roseanne Greco 7:10 PM Convene Meeng The meeng began at 7:10 PM but without a quorum of Commiee members. Later in the evening Fred Kosnitsky joined the meeng via phone link for about 15 minutes, providing a quorum and enabling the Commiee to convene, consider, and vote on one proposed Commiee acon, as described below. These notes address the discussions that took place and the one acon taken. Sam Swanson volunteered to record notes of this meeng. Lacking a quorum the Commiee did not consider reviewing and approving the dra minutes from the previous meeng. 7:15 PM Public invited to speak · Karen McKenny read a note from Mike Scollins requests that the Energy Commiee support his recommendaon to ask the City to add water use history to the informaon provided consumers on their water bills. Because we did not have a quorum we deferred acon on the leer. The Commiee members present expressed support for the objecve of addressing the energy implicaons of water use. Karen will follow up. City Staff Updates – Ilona Blanchard · Ilona reported that the Council has proceeded with filling vacancies on the City’s Commiees. In the case of the Energy Commiee Sam Swanson’s term has expired and he must apply again if he wishes to connue to serve on the Energy Commiee. Sam indicated he intends to apply for reappointment. There are two addional vacancies. · The Commiee deferred discussion of the status of plans for Energy Efficiency improvements in City buildings unl the discussion of plans for Georgetown University Energy Prize (“GUEP”) acvies. 7:50 PM Project Updates – Commiee members · Members discussed whether we can create a Commiee web site tool to facilitate coordinaon of GUEP and other Commiee projects. Ilona introduced the Trello web site tool that is designed to facilitate collaboraon. Informaon on Trello is available on the web site www.trello.com . Don described the project planning tools he urges we use for our work on the GUEP. Don indicated he will examine Tello. · Don explained that he has been working with the commiee members and others in the community on development of GUEP task plans. He outlined steps we may want to take to develop an effecve process for managing the many acvies involved in the GUEP program. · Don reported on the steps the GUEP Outreach working group has taking to develop a community engagement campaign. Members present agreed that the Outreach Plan must include both a plan of acon and a clearly arculated message. Ilona urged that the Commiee use social messaging as a communicaons channel to the community. · Keith reported the very important news received this week that South Burlington had been selected to parcipate in the GUEP compeon with 51 other communies naonwide, including Montpelier and Waterbury/Duxbury in VT. Keith agreed to nofy a long list of stakeholders, including all organizaons that endorsed our applicaon and government leaders at all levels in VT. · EnergyPrize.org will be the GUEP web site for South Burlington. A dra of the site is being demonstrated on a development site that will be released to the public when completed. Contact Keith for more informaon. · Karen reported the steps she is taking to enlist volunteers. She has sent a survey to everyone who aended the launch party for the GUEP project, using the SurveyMonkey tool. She described a series of acons she is taking to organize events design to publicize the South Burlington GUEP campaign and to recruit volunteers. The acons include for example, farmers market tabling and a table at the upcoming Autumn Fest. · Fred joined the meeng by phone. His phone parcipaon achieved a meeng quorum. Keith introduced a moon, seconded by Karen to apply for a $300 grant from Efficiency Vermont to buy a tent, a table, a banner and some weights to hold down the tent for the purpose of promong energy efficiency in South Burlington. Fred departed the meeng aer the vote: o Yea: Don, Karen, Sam, and Fred o No one voted against and no one requested to abstain from vong on the moon · Outreach to other organizaons – Don pointed out that Sam has agreed to organize and begin steps to communicate informaon about the GUEP to other organizaons in the community, including for example South Burlington’s several faith communies and the South Burlington Rotary. · Don introduced the need to enlist a volunteer to help the Energy Commiee apply for financial assistance from organizaons that may offer funding support. Karen will contact someone who has expressed interest in helping with the GUEP campaign. · Linda McGinnis reported on the recent meeng with representaves from the South Burlington Schools. Linda has been leading a persistent effort to enlist the South Burlington Schools to parcipate in three iniaves. o Solar power purchase from prospecve solar project to be located on the closed landfill site in South Burlington. She is working now to persuade School District Superintendant David Young to sign a leer comming the School District to purchase power from this project. o Efficiency improvements in South Burlington school buildings – while the schools have taken a number of very producve steps we believe there remain many more opportunies to save the School District money thru energy bill reducons produced by addional energy efficiency improvements. She has iniated discussion of this but much more work will be required to make progress on this. o School curriculum development – Linda reported that work is underway to develop an elementary school curriculum on energy; middle school work has not started yet but Linda has idenfied someone in the middle school administraon she intends to contact. She reported that the head of high school science program is already applying to parcipate in the “Whole School Energy Challenge”. o Karen reported that she working to enlist students to work on the GUEP through a program that encourages students to parcipate in community service projects o Sam reported that the City has entered into discussions with Commons Energy to develop an energy efficiency investment program. He reported on a meeng between Commons Energy’s Logan Brown and several key City Staff, including Kevin Dorn, Ilona Blanchard, Jusn Rabidoux and Tom Hubbard. Kevin Dorn expressed interest in moving forward quickly and designated Jusn as the lead for the City. Sam has provided Kevin with the informaon on City energy use assembled by Peter Tousley in the Porolio Manager web site informaon system. Sam will follow up on this. See Sam for details. o Keith reported on his efforts to develop electricity efficiency projects with Efficiency Vermont (“EVT”) and Green Mountain Power. He is acvely exploring a project to map average household energy use by neighborhood. He has a long list of addional projects that he is negoang for implementaon with EVT. He submied a list of project proposals and is now waing for their response. o Don reported that the next step for work with VT Gas is a follow up meeng with execuves. He indicated that the execuves voiced strong support for the South Burlington GUEP iniave in the first meeng. He is looking forward to obtaining specific commitments in the next meeng. South Burlington resident Rosanne Grecco addressed the members present urging Commiee to use the current public comment period on the proposed Form Based Code to advocate for strong energy performance standards for new structures Don reported steps the Commiee has taken to address the Form Based Code and indicated that the Commiee has already voiced its desire to see new construcon held to higher energy performance standards. Rosanne Grecco indicated she is advocang in her comments that the FBC include standards for efficiency and renewable energy. Ilona announced that the City requests all commiees, including the Energy Commiee, to submit by Sept 15 their proposals for capital improvements during the period 2016-2015. The Commiee members present adjourned at 9:02 PM.