Energy Committee

By City Clerk at 2:28 pm, Oct 16, 2023 AMESBURY CITY HALL 62 Friend Street Amesbury, MA 01913 Amesbury Energy Committee September 14th, 2023 @ 5:00pm Municipal Development Center 39 South Hunt Road Amesbury, MA 01913 Minutes Members Present: Barbara Lorenc, Nancy Maynes, Tony Rinaldi, Bill Messner, and Mike Browne Absent: Nate Mallard, Michael Hogg 1. Meeting called to order at 5:13pm 2. Minutes from May and June approved 3. Public Comment: We need to revise school trash programs/Styrofoam trays, look into buying dishwashers again. Bill Messner met with Bruce McBrian, former teacher of the Middle School and a member of the Green Team. His mission is to address school trash. Perhaps the Energy Committee will add this to future projects. ACTION: 4. Communications: NONE. 5. Existing Business: • Tony continues to work with the schools, but the schools are reluctant to use their credits. Projects: finish lighting in high school and middle school; new Cashman school, and pneumatic controls for the air movement in the middle school. It is estimated that half of these controls are not working, and could be replaced or converted to manual controls. Tony working with the chief of staff to investigate. Mayor Gove is exploring the possibility of a dollar-for-dollar credit exchange. As of July 23rd, the energy credit balance for schools alone was $493,000. • Aggregation updates. There has been very little progress. DPU has launched an investigation into its own practices and procedures; Colonial Power Group Inc. has written a critical analysis of this process. The new regulations appear to be much more complicated as well as eroding local control and jurisdiction. The City of Amesbury is submitting a comment letter to the Massachusetts Secretary of Energy strongly agreeing with Colonial’s negative analysis. A bill has been written to return to original regulations as written and is in the House. Public comment period ends 9/27/23. • The Committee will recommend that we have a full-time staff person to answer phones once aggregation is approved and launched, as every resident will have questions. Colonial will assist in the initial process, but current resident moves and new residents will require someone available to explain aggregation to them. • Mass Energy Insight: Mike Browne recommends for municipal energy cost information.  • Action items have been forgotten and we need to bring them back for review. ACTION: Nancy to go back to old Action items in Minutes going back to January and make a list. • We propose a (nonbinding) resolution that city agencies and departments be required to consider alternative energy or energy-efficient products for any purchases and demonstrate their reasoning for not making such a purchase has been dropped. ACTION: Michael Hogg nominated in absentia to write the resolution • Nancy researched more Pay-As-You-Throw and recycling. Amesbury has just signed a new contract with G. Mello and so the city will be unable at the moment to change systems. Question: is the contract negotiable so that the city can explore cost-saving and environmentally friendly alternatives to our present system? ACTION: find a lawyer who can examine the contract and supply the city with options. Bill Messner suggests that we try to reduce costs by putting all bins on one side of the street. Can we discuss with G. Mello? Another idea is that with citywide composting we could change frequency by picking up every two weeks rather than weekly. • Suggestions for recycling incentives put forward by Bill Messner: competitions among neighborhoods or streets or communities to motivate people. Open this up to public comment. Help to educate students with class trips to G. Mello? Bill asked Mayor Gove to send info on how successful the recycling program is. 6. NEW BUSINESS: • Nate Mallard is resigning his Committee membership, as he will no longer be an Amesbury resident. • Bill suggests renaming the Committee to Energy, Environment, and Sustainability Committee, with short, medium and long-term goals. Mike says LEEDS for Cities corresponds exactly to Bill’s suggestions. ACTION: Mike Brown will give us an overview presentation for October. The structure that Bill is suggesting is already laid out in the LEED for Cities. 7. Meeting adjourned at 6:30pm.