[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay, so greetings all. This is the Medford Energy and Environment Committee meeting for March 6, 2023. And I would like to, first of all, greet everyone. And then perhaps we can have a roll call and introduction of people who are attending. So let's start with that. OK, so let's see. I'll start reading out names. Benji Hiller? Here. Barry Ingber?
[Barry Ingber]: Here.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Loretta's not here. Kathleen McKenna?
[Unidentified]: Here.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Luke McKinley?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: McNeely, yes, here.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Sorry, McNeely, I apologize. No worries. Martha's not here. Bob Payne? Present. Jessica Parks? Present. John Rogers is not here. And I am Paul Taslini, the chair. And so that is the roll call. Thank you very much. I wanted to bring up, I unfortunately was burdened with massive amount of work over the past two weeks, and I have been a little remiss in terms of sending out the minutes from January, from, I beg your pardon, from February meeting. And so I wanted to, I sent them out already. So can we have a show of hands for approval for that meeting? The minutes.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: We're at a four on screen, approve. You might have to ask the remainder. Yep.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Alicia?
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't vote because I'm, Lily and I don't vote because we're stuck.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Oh yes, yes, yes, I forgot.
[Alicia Hunt]: But if the four of you raised your hands plus Paul, that's five.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yes, that's right. So we have approval of the minutes all February. All right, excellent.
[Robert Paine]: You got to go back to January now too.
[Alicia Hunt]: Do we have the deadline? That's right.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: We have to have a review of January. That's right, because we didn't have quorum last year, last month. So can I have a show of hands for January minutes?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I can't remember, and I believe I was not present.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: You might have not been present, yeah. Jessica, were you present?
[Sue Brown]: I was. I just gave a thumbs up. I was not.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK, excellent. I just saw that. OK, great. OK, so we have approval.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I think I was not present, so I shouldn't be voting on the January minutes.
[Robert Paine]: OK.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Robert Paine]: The minutes indicate, Luke, that you were present, believe it or not.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All righty.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: And I approve.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right, excellent. So we have approval of January minutes. We have approval of February minutes. Now, the third item is, at least on this first list, is some administrative updates from Alicia. Alicia, if you don't mind, if there is any.
[Robert Paine]: One question for you, Paul. Were you going to announce a meeting? Oh, yes. I apologize.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yes, that's right. We have a resignation from the committee. Gaston Fio, who was co-chair with me, could not attend the meetings anymore because of work issues and overload, and he He sends his regrets and I presume we're looking for another volunteer to replace Gaston. So that's the announcement for his resignation. So that's That's Gaston's resignation. All right. So now let's, Alicia, do you have any administrative updates?
[Alicia Hunt]: So I guess it's actually administrative update that the, with regards to open meeting law or the remote meetings. So the state House has voted, they have included in one of their things that they voted on last week to include an extension of remote meeting law for, or the law that allows fully remote meetings through 2024, through March, 2024. So it's a two year extension of it. No, 2025, because they did a two year extension. And the Senate has not yet voted. We're not sure when they're going to vote, but everybody expects them. Basically what the House did was that they had some other bill they were planning to vote for and pass. and they included it in there. And in theory, the Senate can do the same thing and then they put it in committee and then they merge it all together and then the governor can sign it. So there's every expectation that the Senate is going to do the same. Nobody is making plans to return all meetings to in-person. Everybody's expecting them to do the right thing here. So that's one administrative update. The other is that we are starting to interview and advertise for interns, for additional interns. And as well as this committee is interested in additional members. So this committee was listed in the last time the mayor put out a call for volunteers for boards and commissions. And I'm going to ask Lily to help me remember to look at the database of applicants that are coming in basically all the applicants for all the boards and commissions come into one large database. And so I just have to sort for the ones that indicated an interest in this board. And then we can take a look at that and see if there are some people who are interested. Usually staff will reach out to interested people first and sort of make sure that they understand what they're applying for and that they are still interested or they're indeed interested. Sometimes we find people go to the page and they're interested in one board or commission, and then they'll check off like six that are of interest to them because you can do it all in one form. And they may not actually understand what the others are that they're applying for. So we do like to kind of to check that everybody's on the same page and still interested. And then make some recommendations about adding members. to this committee. So we'll take a look at that. I just, sorry, I'm trying to hire full-time staff and that's sort of been taking a lot of my brain power. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. All right.
[Alicia Hunt]: I don't think I have any other updates.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right. So, I have here a review of committee meeting dates for 2023. Bob, can you help me out with that?
[Robert Paine]: Well, there was a item in the February minutes. The mayor wants to meet with us to publicize the Harvester Energy Festival. And I had proposed, although we couldn't vote on it, moving April's meeting to the second Monday so that they wouldn't conflict with the mayor's schedule. Alicia was going to check to see if the mayor had a conflict. I don't know if Alicia ever did that. So that would be April 9th. That would be April 10th would be Easter Monday would be the second Monday. I don't know if there's any problem with Easter Monday, but I don't think so.
[Alicia Hunt]: So what makes the most sense would be that I'll send the mayor a note asking her about meeting with the committee about the energy festival and see if she can make the regular meeting. And if not, can we work out, like, can we just, I think we'll just shoot for another Monday night to make it easy. There is no problem. It is perfectly fine to schedule for a committee to discuss meeting dates via email. That is not in violation of open meeting law. It's actually one of the things that specifically is said, you can talk about scheduling the meeting outside of a public meeting. So what probably makes the most sense is for me to send an email to everybody or I'll work with Lily. We might have Lily or Teresa do it to see if we can find a date that works for the mayor. And I know that Loretta is very interested and has started actually doing some work on the energy festival already for next year.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: She mentioned that she had more vendors, food vendors that are interested in showing up.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. So I want to make sure that whenever we schedule the mayor is also a time that Loretta can be there.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Of course.
[Alicia Hunt]: But we can do that scheduling via email. I suspect that would be easier for everybody that way.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Sure.
[Robert Paine]: So would April 10th be Okay with most members, I wonder.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Should we have a show of hands or?
[Robert Paine]: You could.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I'll be out of town the 3rd and the 10th.
[Robert Paine]: Well, that doesn't mean you can't participate, but.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Well, it's vacation. Okay, got it. If there was some, if it's really important, I could figure out a way.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It's just a meeting with the mayor. Come on, Benji. No, sorry.
[Robert Paine]: Would this be a meeting just for that or would it be part of our, we would just move the whole meeting to that new date? Is that what the thought is?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: In the past, we moved the whole meeting and allocated a significant portion of time to talking with the mayor. But if, I mean, we could do that either way, I expect.
[Robert Paine]: And do we need a vote? Otherwise, I think we had, the schedule that we worked out in the January minutes was the first Monday of the month, except possibly for, was it November because of election or something like that? It might be the second Monday that month. And then if summer, we're going to negotiate based on schedules. Do we need to- Do we have a vote also to continue virtual meetings or is that like, I don't know, at least you can advise us whether we need to vote on that.
[Alicia Hunt]: You don't have to vote on it. And if you felt that you needed a vote, you could, you don't need to. Usually it's just a discussion. Okay.
[Robert Paine]: Okay. Does everyone then, I guess, want to continue virtual meetings?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I'm good with it. It's difficult for me sometimes to come on a Monday to someplace. So it's easier, at least for me, to accommodate that.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I certainly second that.
[Robert Paine]: Sounds good, especially if we're on a trip, we could still meet or attend the meeting.
[Unidentified]: Absolutely.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right, so there's consensus on that. That's good. Okay, the next item on the agenda is priorities for the committee in 2023. And you've seen this blurb that I put in In the January meeting I think and it, we, it found its way obviously in the, in the February meeting to. But since we didn't have quorum we didn't really discuss it. Anyway, so I would like to propose that we discuss the following. And I have essentially plagiarized from documents that people have given me before in terms of setting the priorities. So it's, Luke was kind enough to send some material my way and Bob did too. And so there is some material that I guided myself. So we'll see. But to discuss it, I would like to propose that we go through it one by one. Or if there is agreement, I can read them all, and then we can decide which one we want to do first. How does everyone feel about that?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes, but can you share a screen or other?
[Unidentified]: Sure, I can do that.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Absolutely. Sure. Thank you.
[Unidentified]: Let's see. Where is my sharing screen?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: It's funny, I can't find my, oh, it's right there in front of me, right. Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, it was me. I accidentally, I thought I had made you co-host, but you weren't listed as a co-host. Now you should be able to share.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay, let's try that again. All right. Okay, here we go.
[Unidentified]: Can everyone see the screen? Yes.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK, so so the items for discussion are. in terms of setting priorities. So these are all suggestions, of course, we can add or subtract from any of these. But the first one is annual organization of the RSU Energy Festival. At the McGlynn Middle School, I assume that there is agreement we continue doing that as a priority for the group. The second item is supporting and promoting electrification of public transport. Third is supporting and promoting tree equity, in particular in areas where there is paucity of canopy, and continuing to cooperate with Trees Medford on this matter. Fourth item is perhaps a re-invigoration of the Green Energy Awards to Medford residents and businesses that have made substantial contributions to our local environment. I bring this up because it's an incentivization strategy and often these have good results. But of course, I haven't been on the committee that long, so I would hope that those of you who've tried this before can chime in and and elaborate. Then the fifth item is engagement of high school students in support of various environmental issues. Again, this is a suggestion. How can we engage with a high school? We've done this before. Gaston had some ideas in the past couple of years. How can we help increase student engagement? Is the solid waste initiative at the high school still alive? what happened to the high school orchard idea. And I think we discussed this a while back regarding the orchard. But I personally feel it's a wonderful idea. And if there's any way we can get this to work at the high school by talking to people and sort of facilitating it, I think it would be a capital idea. And of course there's other project ideas. So the sixth item is attending and participating in community events to provide education and outreach to met with residents regarding energy and environment issues. We are doing this through various, you know, clearly through the festival and a couple of other events that we've, you know, we go to and provide residents with with educational material. And then the seventh item, and this is something that I've been interested in and I wanted to gauge others' opinion about it and see if we can do something about this, is developing an urban meadows in Medford. And of course, lastly, any other ideas or initiatives that any members of the committee may have. So I will just leave it to everyone to chime in and give their ideas about what's on the screen there.
[Unidentified]: So go ahead.
[Robert Paine]: Paul, this is Bob. The first item, was there any argument as to whether we should continue to have the Harvester Energy Festival at the McGlenn School?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No, I mean, that's a given priority for the committee. I think that's, there's consensus on maintaining that going forward. So there's no, you know, I'm certainly not quibbling about it.
[Robert Paine]: All right, yeah, plus it's inside of the wind turbine, so that's probably, yeah, want to keep it there. And we have access to the school facilities, so it's a pretty good spot.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Of course, doing any of these requires a little bit of effort on the part of members. So anybody who wants to, you know, support any one of these. I'll certainly spend a portion of my time getting any of these up and running, but it requires time. And I know that is a scarce commodity for many of you, but still.
[Robert Paine]: And the discussion with the mayor, if it happens next month, will be more on how to engage more of the public attention on this or spinoffs of it. So that's, you know, this will be, you know, further embellished later this spring.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So would folks prefer to have me go through each one of these and then we get a up and down vote on whether we should consider it going forward? Would that be a more constructive way to go about this?
[Robert Paine]: Sounds good to me.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: It sounds good to me. OK. OK, so we are, I believe there is consensus on number one, annual organization of the Harvest U Energy Festival. Bob just talked about that. Okay, so second item is supporting and promoting electrification of public transport. How we do this is, you know, I'm not entirely sure myself. So if folks have any ideas to facilitate this, I think it's a good idea to do it. So let's have a show of votes for that.
[Robert Paine]: Also, the state climate law requires this to some extent anyway. But if Medford has a way to facilitate that in discussion with state officials on how to implement the climate law, that's another thing. But I think it's going to happen due to the state law.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Right. OK.
[Martha Ondras]: Okay, I think I think the you know the public transit there's the school bus electrification which may be. Alicia can tell us, you know where Medford is on that I know that's something that. seem too expensive or out of reach last time we talked about it, but there may be more. infrastructure money for it now. There's also the, you know, the MBTA, the commuter rail and bus system in Greenline, which are MBTA, and we do not have obviously control of that. We are just, we could be advocates for those to become electrified. And certainly the one that stands out is commuter rail because of the diesel exhaust pollution that we get from commuter rail, although buses are a source too. And then I don't know, you know, we don't have any local public transit as far as I know. So locally controlled public, we don't have a town shuttle, you know, or anything like that. So I don't think we can electrify anything else.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Is, has there been any talk about promoting scooters, electric scooters in the city? As public transit? Well, as a form of transit, I guess.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: I will tell you that there's been push for bicycles and Medford residents, the younger people love the bicycles. And there's a huge concern among older people that bicycles, that it's not dangerous and all these things on the road and stuff. And that scooters are like another level beyond that. And I don't think you could get public support like and it's sort of like well what do you are you thinking like just a program to educate people about scooters and to encourage them to buy more and use them, or, like, are you thinking, like, I mean,
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, I see more and more of them when I go to work. I mean, people are getting on public transit with scooters, particularly the folder one. you know, folding ones. And they, essentially they're doing that last mile, you know, between the station and work, or, you know, the last, not the last mile, I don't know, maybe last few blocks between work and a station. So that, you know, that it's, It's definitely getting more and more popular. And it doesn't seem like it's going to be something that's, at least I don't see it being discouraged in Cambridge, which is where I work, but I don't know about other cities. I don't know what your feelings are about it, Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Wait, you don't mean electric scooters then. I assumed you meant like electric scooters. You're talking about manual scooters.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No, no, no. I'm talking about electric scooters.
[Alicia Hunt]: I'm picturing something that's bigger, more massive than a bike, but smaller than a motorcycle.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: No, no, no. I'm talking about the electric scooters that you stand on.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Okay, that's real is that that looks exactly like a like a little kid scooter, but it has an electric, it's an electric motor on it.
[Alicia Hunt]: So Lily does a lot of transportation work for the city. I'm sure maybe she could add.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: She Yeah, I'd love to speak to this a little bit. I do know exactly the type of scooter that Paul's talking about. And they they I agree they are kind of becoming more prevalent. And I think The best way I can describe how we probably should be doing this now is basically making sure we're considering these in our planning and evaluating how best to incorporate them in our transit network. So most of the time, I actually am not 100% sure of whether there are any laws governing where these scooters can go. It may depend on the size and the speed, but usually people who use them will use them in bike lanes if bike lanes are present. Um, I know there have been actually a few years ago, there was a company that deployed some of these scooters that you could rent in Boston. And that was kind of interesting to see unfold because people really would use them, but there were several, you know, problems that kind of came up. So I think the best thing that maybe the city can be doing is making sure that we are, you know, planning to include these because they're not going away and really understanding that as we develop a bike network, we will need to plan that these types of vehicles might be used and how to make sure everybody is, you know, doing so safely. I will say one of the number one complaints that I heard about with the Boston deployment of these was having them sort of littered around the sidewalk, which, you know, this won't be the case if people are owning these personally, but there was also, you know, hesitancy to have them riding on the sidewalk where they might come into conflict with pedestrians. So that's obviously something we would want to avoid. Sure.
[Martha Ondras]: Where do we stand with blue bikes?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I think they've been implemented in Medford, right? I see them on Main Street, actually, near Tufts.
[MCM00001654_SPEAKER_16]: Yes, there are three existing stations that are fairly new, and there are some planned future ones, although the precise locations haven't been finalized. So they are expanding in Medford? They will be expanding. Great, thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I would say that, so, around transportation and particularly bicycles and stuff. And Lily, correct me if I'm wrong, because Lily's been working actually between my office and engineering. I do not think that the city needs more pressure to expand that program because every time the mayor has the opportunity to ask a developer or company to add a blue bike station, she does so. And every time there's a large organization coming in front of the planning board, can they add or sponsor a blue bike station is one of the things that's on that like the director of traffic and transportation looks and says like, is this an appropriate location? Let's ask them to do that. So the city is actually very aggressively trying to expand the system. But we do have to pay annual fees for every station and bike that we have. So the city is also looking for ways to fund the ongoing fees of these as well as the installation of them. What's more necessary and helpful is educating the public around bicycles, and that the bicycles are not scary, but they're things that you, they benefit you, right? Because what we hear about people when we go to put in bike lanes, oh that road isn't safe, how can you put bikes on that road? And people don't understand that when you put more bikes on the road, it takes some of the cars off the road. And the more bikes there are, the more safe it is for bicyclists. If you're the only bike, it's much more dangerous than if there are like a lot of bikes. So there actually is a lot of room for educating residents. We do have a bicycle advisory commission, but this committee could certainly talk to them about like, how can we help? And the more people there are sort of Promoting this idea is helpful, particularly as we go to look at where should we put more bike lanes? At what point do we have to start trading parking spots? Like at some point you can't add bike lanes to a road unless you remove the parking. And where do we make those decisions? This stuff that's coming up.
[Martha Ondras]: Well, I think it would be a very good idea for us to work with the Bike Advisory Commission and possibly others like the Bike to the Sea Group to advance education in the community education on bicycle use. I think that's a good project for us.
[Unidentified]: Good.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yep.
[Martha Ondras]: I like that too.
[Robert Paine]: We can invite them to make a presentation at a future meeting. Maybe May.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: We can certainly do that. Yep. Yep. OK. So does.
[Alicia Hunt]: And I just will answer some of the other questions about public transportation. It is always good to have community groups pushing the MBTA to electrify their buses because yes, they have a state mandate to do it, but what's the order, which buses do they do first. However, we are in order for them to electric to have more electric buses, they need bus depots where they can manage, repair and charge the electric buses. They want to turn Wellington Station into an electric bus depot. And we want to turn it into commercial and residential and stuff that actually benefits the city and provides taxes and income for the city and benefits to the community. So one of the questions has been, well, then where would we put an electric bus depot in this area, basically north of Boston? Because that's where they've been planning to put one. And they can't run electric buses if they don't have somewhere to charge them. And that's true. But pushing the MBTA to do it is helpful and important. We do not run any local transportation as a city, other than we contract out for the school buses. I heard noises about the school bus contract today and I was actually didn't have time to follow up and find out what was being talked about. The general difficult, we don't own any of them, we contract for them. So in order for them to be electric we would have to say in our RFP that we wanted electric school buses. If people start pushing the city after a couple of years maybe they'll do it right this is the kind of thing that you have to play the long game. Nobody is gonna turn around and electrify the school buses overnight, because again, they have to buy them, they have to acquire them, they have to have some place to charge them. So all of this sort of plays into it, but people need the plan, and they're not gonna plan if they don't think the residents want it. It's a school year, it's an election year. You can bring it up when you're talking to potential school committee candidates.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Maybe what I should do is to modify this second point to sort of follow with the discussion we just had and then we'll send it out again.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, if I could just add a comment. Yeah, of course. You might consider it more in terms of transportation and low energy impact or lower carbon impact. And so there's electrification and bikes and scooters are not necessarily electrification, but an important part of our transportation picture. So maybe just in general, more of a lower energy impact.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right, so I will file this so that we can, I will re, I will modify this so we can discuss it next meeting and add some of the discussion we had over here tonight to it. All right, so third item is support and promote tree equity across Medford, and in particular areas where there is less canopy, and continue our cooperation with Trees Medford. So what are folks' opinions about this? I believe that I think there is broad agreement with everyone here that this is something we want to continue doing. There is, I mean, Loretta obviously is going to Trees Madford's meetings and we've certainly put in a lot of effort into getting the tree ordinance, you know, filed in the city, so this is something that we will continue to do so, right? Is that correct? There is a grievance.
[Unidentified]: Yeah, I agree.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Excellent.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So that would be definitely part of our priorities. Right. What about the Green Energy Awards to Metro Bridge residents and businesses? Any opinions about that? Should that be resurrected or just forgotten again? I'm not sure. I know we discussed this at some point last, was it last year or the year before? I don't know. But yeah. But it has always appealed to me. So I don't know if that's something that we want to put some work into and try to resurrect it. So I would welcome any opinions from you.
[Barry Ingber]: My opinion is the same as it's been for the past five years, which is that It is not worth the trouble and it does not do anything to promote sustainability in Medford. All it does is provide a platform for businesses who are acting out of self-interest. It's a whole bizarre process. I don't think it accomplishes anything except taking a whole lot of our time and energy.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Is that an opinion that's shared by everyone or?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I'm inclined to agree.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I was going to say, I do agree with Barry on that. I think it is, I understand your position on it. It appears to be a good incentive, so to speak, for doing the right thing. But I don't think this is necessarily why people would do the right thing. I think the only benefit is that it educates Medford citizens of businesses that are doing something, but it definitely takes a lot of effort for us to put this together.
[Martha Ondras]: I'd like to see if we do put effort into something oriented toward getting businesses to be more carbon efficient. I'm interested in the building tracking, like is Medford going to do something like the Boston Birdo program where we look at the energy use of buildings in the city, and then we would be in position to recognize some property owner who's doing a great job of managing energy use, which might be the school, very well be a nonprofit or a public entity, not necessarily a private business.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you, Martha. I agree with that. Definitely.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, I agree with that one too.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yep. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. Right, so we are not going to pursue Green Energy Awards for Medford residents and businesses.
[Alicia Hunt]: I will, since Martha mentioned the program, the Boston's program around benchmarking buildings. That is something that's been recommended that sort of looks, it's on our energy plan and all is something that we should do and we just haven't really had the staffing to really look into it, figure this out, drive this forward. if that was something that people wanted to start to do some of that, you know, what works in different communities, what doesn't work, realizing that we have a much smaller staff in Medford than in Cambridge, Somerville or Boston, like what can be automated. That is definitely something that we would welcome getting sort of input and help on. One thing that the mayor has had some concerns about is to, have too many things that too many ordinances that then people have to enforce because who's doing the enforcement and where's the staff to then do it. And so how does that actually work and are there ways to do something like this benchmarking. that isn't time-intensive or, and I believe that some communities started with, this sounds crazy, but a voluntary version. And then after a while, they took what they learned from the voluntary version and started to roll it out to the larger entities. There are many entities that own buildings in Medford that are already owned buildings in communities where this is required. So there's absolutely a project here, we just haven't had the staff capacity to take it on if it was something that members of the committee wanted to move forward.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Okay. May I just ask, so is that. In line with the, this is the. Community comprehensive plan, the Medford comprehensive plan as well. I would love for us a to to promote what's in the comprehensive plan as one thing as it relates to energy. So that's, we have a document that is something we can look to for things like this and and work from. I think that promoting a voluntary start to something like this is a great way to kick it off and kind of show how it gets done. There are, as Alicia mentioned, experienced developers and building owners, organizations that can help lead the way. And there are Good voluntary programs like we go wise that individuals or businesses can sign up for in order to monitor and report energy use through. So, anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[Robert Paine]: This is Bob. Is there a way that utility databases are available? I keep getting notices from National Grid, oh, you are higher or lower than your neighbor, efficient neighbors. So how do they know that?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I can answer that. So they know, your neighbors, they are obligated not to share that information that is private. data, they're able to compare without putting names to things, generally speaking, but, and so they're able to say on your street, you are kind of here in the picture of an agency. But, yeah, they, they cannot share that more broadly. In some ways, that's unfortunate. And in other ways, that's the way it is.
[Robert Paine]: They can't share even a summary of large areas without getting specific?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That's a very good question. I think they are obligated to do that, like for regulators. I don't know how detailed that can get, down to what level.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So the public has no access to this information. Regulators do, but not the public.
[Alicia Hunt]: They share it at the level of City. Let me see if I can find the bookmark that I have for it. I will tell you that it took on the order of eight years of me saying to National Grid, can I please have our citywide electricity usage and our citywide gas usage so I can do greenhouse gas benchmarking? And them saying, yes, let me get you the data. Let me figure out how to get you the data. I'm not sure I'm having trouble getting you the data, but I'm working on it. I used to ask I actually kind of calendar reminders, I would ask them every six months for years for this they finally did come out with a way. They finally so many of us needed it and we got the state house on them that there is now actually. a webpage where we can look this information up. But I have to tell you that for several years now, I've had interns doing our energy reporting and greenhouse gas inventories. So I'm not used to getting into the weeds. So let me see if I can find it. If I find it, I'll drop it into the chat.
[Martha Ondras]: So Alicia, you have, you are through an intern have access to the energy efficiency of public buildings in Medford individually?
[Alicia Hunt]: So for municipally owned buildings. Right. Right. We actually, so that's, these are two different things. I was just talking about the whole city. So I have a number that is all the electricity used in the entire city in Medford. So National Grid has access to what is all the energy used in our zip code. But that level of information is available to the public. I just have to remember where it is. I may message Wren, she'll know. And, but then the other thing that you're asking about is municipal buildings, buildings that we own. So yeah, I actually have a master utility account and have access to all the utility bills for all the municipally owned buildings in Medford. And then we have a webpage that you have to log into that gives us graphs about the energy usage in the city, but there, The state has never set up a way to display that information without logging into the city's account to look at it. So we do report annually to the state on municipally owned buildings and municipal vehicles and fuel usage for municipal built vehicles. That's part of the green communities. And then we report, we voluntarily disclose our greenhouse gas emissions citywide through a company called CDP. And it's just a disclosure company that countries, states, cities, and businesses and nonprofits use when they want to disclose. So we're also on there.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, thank you. That I mean, that's a start, you could say, you know, we know that the Brooks School has this energy use per square foot. How does St. Joseph's school compared to that or something, you know, you could at least start having a baseline.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sure, I would say when, so it used to be that I did all the reporting myself personally, and I had a lot of this data just in my head, I could tell you which was our most efficient and least efficient schools. And for probably five years now, I have offloaded that to interns and just sort of submitted it, like looked at it once or twice a year. So it's not as ingrained in my head what the numbers are anymore. It's certainly something we could do a session on.
[Martha Ondras]: Well, it's great to know you have that information somewhere. That's a start.
[Robert Paine]: Is that electric and gas usage? We're just electric.
[Alicia Hunt]: So yeah, so we get it through national grid gas and electricity usage, what we do not have is oil. And the other thing just to know in the big picture as long as you're talking greenhouse gases. We have information so all our municipal vehicles, we fuel them, we have our own gas tanks. And so I actually have data per department on the fuel usage of all of our municipally owned vehicles. However, it is very difficult to get citywide transportation data, right? And just if you think about how could you possibly get it, there is data that the state has had through the Department of Transportation, the RMV, and we've Sorry, the cat insisted on jumping in my lap at that moment. The MAPC organized that data and aggregated it for us in a way that was useful for municipalities. And the most recent data that they had was 2014. And about six months ago, the MAPC let me know that they have finally gotten a new data dump. And it's for, I wanna say, 2020 21 and 22, and they are organizing it and cleaning it and making it available so that the we have done citywide greenhouse gases on transportation in for 2014. And we've been literally using the same number every year since then, because there is no other data. And that we are told that for this spring's reporting, we will finally have new data again. And I apologize for the cat. I either had to let him in or, you know, listen to him. Yes, kitty.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right. Any other comments on this? Should we move on? All right, number five, engaging the high school on various environmental issues. Like I said before, Gaston had some ideas last year, but of course he's no longer with us. So is this something that committee members think would be worth pursuing as a priority 2023. Maybe have one or two projects, you know, have a chat with teachers or people at the high school that may be interested in working with us going forward. I don't know. I think it's a I think it's a good idea to get kids involved earlier, the better. Having them on any kind of sort of organizational project, dealing with the environment, I think is a good idea. So what do folks feel about this?
[Martha Ondras]: I think it would be good to invite some of the people who are working in this area at the high school to speak with us, to come to a meeting, maybe make a very informal presentation of what's going on. And hear their ideas. OK.
[Robert Paine]: And do we know who those people might be? Is Curtis Tooden still there?
[Martha Ondras]: Probably. There is someone who runs the social and Alicia can help me out, the CCSR, the very large and active group. The center.
[Unidentified]: Alicia, you're muted.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, thank you. The Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, the CCSR. The main teacher who had been organizing that isn't doing it this year, and the environmental teacher I was working with who was working with them also stepped down this year. So I know they have Rich Trotta and I'm not clear what his role is as an organizer there. They tell me that there are a lot of students who are doing projects. Usually the students in the fall think of projects and sort of propose them and then work on them over the course of the school year. And sometimes it's not a bad idea to give them ideas in the end of the spring. that students could think about over the summer or think about for the next fall. But I'm not 100% sure who the right person is, although I could reach out to Rich about it. He's not currently in the schools. He just organizes the CCSR.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I can reach out to folks I know in school to see who's doing what.
[Alicia Hunt]: That would be great.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I can bring it back to the committee in our next meeting and see if I can get anyone to talk about something at our next meeting too. So I'll make that a priority for myself. So it seems like there is some agreement among all of us to have at least some of these looked at.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I think it's a really good idea. I think that there's some work involved because our easy ins Alicia's activist daughter, and our previous to Bob chair were easy ends and and delicious daughter is I believe in college now and Curtis is gone. So, It just makes it a little harder for us to pursue.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Well, I'm very interested in this, so I will try to engage the high school with this. Something that I was curious about was, I know we had a discussion about it a while back, was whatever happened to the high school orchard idea? Is that still alive, or is that gone? I have no information on that anymore, so.
[Martha Ondras]: Alicia, do you want to talk about that?
[Alicia Hunt]: The last I knew was when Retta was working on it, and she doesn't work with the schools anymore. I feel like she told me something in the past year, but I honestly don't know where it stands. OK.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, Retta had initiated it when she was at the high school, and it ran into some opposition.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK. All right. Okay, I thought they had, when I was informed about the idea, I thought they'd actually planned out, it was a decent plan actually. So, although for some obscure reason, there was a preponderance of, of a particular kind of fruit tree, parsimons. I don't know why that was so, might've been easy maintenance, I'm not sure. Okay, all right, let's move on. So community events to provide education. I think that's been our role. And Bob has been doing this, I think, with Tufts Energy. I assume we're going to continue this going forward. Unless there is any disagreement on that, we can move on to the next one. Anyone?
[Robert Paine]: Yeah. in November, typically a webinar, which we can continue to work with Tufts on. It turns out the Tufts Energy Conference happened last week, but it was during the week. I used to go on Saturdays, but I guess you can't do that anymore, unfortunately. So it's hard for many people who have to work during the week to get to that conference, if it's going to be during the week. So that was a disappointing development. I think it happened last year too. It used to be on weekends, and now it's not. And that's very disappointing.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: You would imagine that something like that would have more participation if it was done on a weekend, right? but yeah.
[Robert Paine]: Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that was one of the educational opportunities because we could get good rates for Medford residents.
[Barry Ingber]: Do either of our Tufts attendees have anything, any information on that or anything to contribute to this piece of the discussion?
[Unidentified]: Are you there?
[Alicia Hunt]: See, if you decide that you'd like to join us, you can you're able to unmute yourself or you could put comments in the chat directly as well. Janine put in the chat that she doesn't know anything about that, unfortunately.
[Unidentified]: OK. All right.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Any other comments on this?
[Robert Paine]: Depending on what the mayor wants us to do with outreach to the Harvester Energy Festival, we can flesh this out after that discussion.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK, that sounds good. All right, we'll do that. Thank you, Bob. Right, number seven is something that I've been interested in for, for a while and when I even joined the committee I, I made a pitch for it I think at some point this was so long ago I don't even know if I have the presentation but Broadly speaking, this would mean having, you know, spending a little bit of money on the part of the city to mow the grass and, you know, perhaps we can get volunteers to prepare the soil to have some native species, native flowers grown in, I don't know, let's start small, two areas, and have those tended by volunteers. I know a bunch of cities in Massachusetts are doing this or have done this, certainly in In the country, there are many examples of this. So if you type in urban meadows, you'd see many, many examples of this all over the country. So this is particularly appealing to me. I would like to know what the other committee members feel about it. So please chime in.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I will say that I am a very big fan of the urban meadow idea and any opportunities for additional natural space. I am a fan. I can't remember the name of Paul. You probably know the... Luke, you have to increase the volume. Oh, sorry. You're fading out. In Cambridge, there's a... a version of an urban meadow that is kind of a natural or a biodiversity plot that I thought was very good. Anyway, I am a fan. I'll leave it at that.
[Unidentified]: Yeah. Anyone else?
[Alicia Hunt]: in doing this is education with dpw and signage, indicating that this is what this is and that you shouldn't know it. It's the city is actually planted meadow locations in the past, and then had dpw. mow through it. And one of the issues that we actually had with the rain garden was that some of the people who were working at Wright's Pond thought they were being helpful and they mowed down the plants in the rain garden because they didn't even realize that that was something that you shouldn't be doing. So there are definitely some educational pieces and some need for signage as part of a project like that.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK, I personally am very interested in this. I would like to do something about it. So if anybody would like to join me in this venture, I would appreciate that. So I'll put that up for discussion. Perhaps one thing we should do is to see if who wants to contribute to any of these things that are listed up here. So I'll set up an Excel sheet, and anybody who wants to spend a bit of time on any of these, you'd let me know. How does that appeal to everyone?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Right. So any other ideas and initiatives for 2023?
[Robert Paine]: I was going to say, as part of the education events, I would like to have a presentation invited about how the climate law is going to be implemented, especially with the new governor. Maybe there is a... Yes, for example, what's your name? Who is the EPA administrator who's now back in Massachusetts?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Gina McCarthy?
[Robert Paine]: Gina McCarthy, yes. Isn't she working for the governor now to help implement the... I believe so. Yeah. Maybe we can invite her. That could be maybe the part of the November thing. We can reach out. But, or someone who is knowledgeable about how this is gonna work and how municipalities can be knowledgeable about how to engage and take advantage of these initiatives would be interesting. But I don't know, Alicia, whether you have any insights or opinions on that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I'm not sure. insights on which?
[Robert Paine]: How the climate law is going to be implemented, especially with the new administration in the state, and whether there's any outreach to municipalities that the state is doing to help do that implementation.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, well there, I mean, it's all in the details, right? Like it's, oh, there's this climate law, but there are actually like all the details is what that actually has to happen. So they are creating, the new budget that the governor's put forward is significantly increasing the budget for the EEA, Energy and Environmental Affairs. She's adding a Department of Environmental Justice and adding staff in that area. The MVP program, which you guys might remember Carolyn works there, that was originally temporary positions. All of those positions have been made permanent and they're expanding that program as well. So she's sort of, the first thing is that they're investing in having enough people to then run programs to do stuff. She's also leaning heavily on housing more than we're really seeing on environmental issues, but that doesn't mean they're not doing both. She's actually doing a lot of like putting the, trying to set stuff up. She can't just change rules, right, but they can run out, they can roll out programs, they can fund programs and stuff. So we're just starting to see some of that as they're just starting to create positions and then advertise for them. By the way, hiring in government is really hard these days. I don't know exactly what you're getting at, but.
[Robert Paine]: Maybe the November webinar can try to engage.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Is it a lack of applicants that's making hiring difficult or a lack of funding?
[Alicia Hunt]: Applicants, that's Spain. We all every community I know is trying to hire from the same small pool of people. The state's a little in a little bit better position because they allow remote work. They actually mandate remote work. Carolyn's only required to go into the office one day a week. And she no longer has an office, she has to swap and share desks and stuff for all state programs. What I think is happening as I've been talking to people is that there's been a lot of funding poured into this whole planning and environment and sustainability. And a lot of positions have been created, but there are no more people to go around than there ever were. Like there's not like this new surge of people suddenly working in the field who want to work for government salaries. They all wanna go work for private companies. Well, not everybody. I mean, hi, Lily and I are here, but they wanna go work for private and make a lot of money, right? Like we're all, every planning department and sustainability department that I know is expanding, not cutting positions.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Well, the average monthly rent in Medford is, I think, over $3,000. So that is an issue.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: A little off topic, but I find it fascinating that we read about restaurants can't find workers, school teachers supposedly can't. There's a shortage. Nurses, there's a shortage. There's a shortage of doctors, even at Mass General, if you ever tried to get an appointment with a specialist. And now you're telling me that municipal workers are at a shortage. Where's everybody going? That's a rhetorical question.
[Alicia Hunt]: No, we've been asking that for real. And what we think is happening is that people are retiring. More people are during the pandemic said, do I need to work? Do I wanna work? They're shifting fields. And then like the jobs that you're naming are the ones that are hard work for low pay and they're not highly rewarded. And people are just saying, I don't need to do that. because there are other opportunities out there.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: What are the jobs they're going to, as opposed to from?
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I can tell you there is a flood of people into science jobs. I can tell you that right now. We have no problems recruiting at where I work. So it's just flooded. Lots of PhDs, lots of master's degree students coming into industry.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah, everybody wants to work in industry. They don't wanna work for, although I will say, and I just have to be clear, I am also seeing individuals who are saying, I had soul searching and I don't wanna be doing corporate work anymore. And I wanna be doing something where I can make a real difference and change. And we've benefited from that. I have one staff in my office who in fact did exactly that. And we are very happy that she much prefers to be doing public service than, there's a reason they call it public service, which by the way, sounds like volunteering, but it's actually your career. But I've talked to a couple of people, but it's like a trickle of people who are saying, actually, what I wanna do is do good for my community. And you're seeing a flood of people who are like, I'm gonna go to industry and make real money.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Is there any, like, attempt by municipalities to sort of go to, you know, go to universities and try to recruit kids out of school, you know, into municipal jobs. I know the MBTA has these massive signs now. It says opportunity around the corner. You've seen that, right? I don't know how effective that's been, but it's certainly very in your face kind of thing. And I don't know if that's the sort of thing that you or other, you might be aware of other cities that have done.
[Alicia Hunt]: Well, that's literally what we do when we hire interns, right? But there's a point where like, for example, one of our openings, so the lower, I don't want them to say lower level, but the jobs that need less experience, the ones that require less experience are easier to fill. The positions that are open that are very hard to fill right now, I have economic development director. I had somebody apply straight out of college, and I'm sorry, but you do not have the experience to be our economic development director straight out of college. For our housing planner positions, we wanted three to five years of experience and knowledge of Massachusetts housing programs, but we are now reevaluating whether we should consider straight out of college applicants. Some of the other positions open in the city are assessor and city solicitor. The ones that are turning over and getting filled, the administrative assistant positions, like the sanitarian, that's the health inspector, those positions they're filling. But the ones that like finance director took us nine months to find somebody qualified. And I was part of some of those interviews and you have to have certain level of knowledge and experience to do some of these jobs. That's part of the problem. Sorry, perhaps some of my personal frustration is boiled over into this one. I apologize. Not at all. Yay, we have more positions, I can hire more people. And now it's turning out to be so much work to hire more people.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: All right, next item on the agenda. And Loretta is not here. So that was an update on tree and leaf grow ordinances. If anybody has any information- Wait, wait, wait.
[Barry Ingber]: Paul, you had number eight there, which was other ideas.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Oh, other ideas and initiative. I apologize. Yes, go ahead.
[Barry Ingber]: I just want to, Even though right now I don't have the energy for it, once again, I would like to have as a placeholder developing low-income community solar opportunities in Medford.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I think that's a capital idea. Yeah.
[Barry Ingber]: It's a capital idea that is a ton and a half of work.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yeah. Well, I would, I would agree to, to have that as a priority, but again, I'm not. But I'm easily convinced by people that have passion about stuff. So that's my fault. But I think that's a good idea. So if anybody wants to chime up, please do.
[Robert Paine]: It might be part of the climate law with the emphasis on environmental justice and also promoting renewable energy. way that the state law will invest there. So I think that's another way, another reason to be cognizant of what they're planning, you know, that might take care of it.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Would anyone be willing to get a little bit of information on that?
[Robert Paine]: I guess we have to find the right person to contact that's knowledgeable about the implementation of the state law. I can try to find out who that might be.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Thank you, Bob. OK, great.
[Robert Paine]: Good. By the way, on the tree ordinance, there's gonna be a committee meeting Wednesday. This Wednesday, yeah.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: That's a city meeting, isn't it?
[Robert Paine]: City meeting, correct.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Yes, yes, yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: City Council.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I apologize, City Council meeting.
[Alicia Hunt]: The City Council Committee of the Whole is meeting about the tree ordinance this week.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay, all right. Okay, I'm going to try and attend. So I'll have to bring you some information about that.
[Barry Ingber]: All right. Does Sue have anything to add about that?
[Sue Brown]: Hi there, I was just reaching for my mute button. I know no more Barry, other than then it's on the schedule for Wednesday. I think I expect there to be questions from the committee members about enforcement and budget.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, I'm sorry if this has already been said, but the city council did decide to split the ordinance into three parts. One deals with trees on public land, one deals with trees on private land, and one deals with the formation of a new tree committee. So that was partitioned to make each part easier to deal with. as it was expressed. So that's, I think, and I think as Sue says, the enforcement as always comes up as do we have the staff, you know, what is it going to cost to enforce this?
[Sue Brown]: So they've called DPW Commissioner Tim McGivern, Tree Warden, Aggie Tudin, the Director of Planning, Development and Sustainability, our own Alicia Hunt, and the Building Commissioner, Bill Forte, to be at that meeting.
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, because the Building Commissioner's group would be the one to enforce, to do enforcement. I think they also were looking at differentiating the fines and fees so that homeowners were not charged at the same rates as developers.
[Unidentified]: But it should be an interesting meeting. Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Sorry, I just I will forward to you the zoom the calendar invite with the zoom information and the current working draft ordinance. I asked Nicole for it and she says this is what was circulated by the clerk to the city council last week. So I don't have your email address. It's not popping up for me. Do you want to just message it to me and I'll include you on this.
[Sue Brown]: I have all that information. I was going to post it in the chat, but I'm not able to. So I'm fine. Thank you for having me, Alicia.
[Alicia Hunt]: Great. All right. I'm going to forward this to the committee then.
[Robert Paine]: I think I had sent out something about that meeting, but I don't know if I have the latest draft. I don't know if it's been updated.
[Alicia Hunt]: I just forwarded you what they circulated. It's got comments from all different city staff and some some lawyers in it.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: OK, I think Bob sent out some information about residential heat pump options for residential homes already. So we're going to skip that because people will be able to see that in the material Bob sent out already.
[Robert Paine]: I just want to summarize because of some important points. I'm exploring the option for my own. residents and I went, I actually paid 150 bucks for a one-hour consultation and they sent me all sorts of interesting links and discussions. And then I attended another Green Energy Consumer Alliance webinar. The issue is some of the rebates from the Inflation Reduction Act aren't in effect yet until the state sets it up. So It's almost better to procrastinate a little bit in order to get the rebate from the feds because it isn't available yet. But also, it's interesting that with the very high prices of electricity this winter, people have warned me, well, if you think you're going to save money, Richard, natural gas, you're not. You're paying a lot more, especially in colder weather than natural gas, unfortunately. There were a couple of plots in the presentation that show how it's very interesting to compare the cost of a heat pump system in winter, depending on the price of electricity. And with current rates, you're paying more than natural gas heating. Maybe it's an issue of the Ukrainian war. I don't know. It's, it's not good for electricity, it's winter. Even, even though natural gas has gone up, electricity has gone up even more.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I find it curious that natural gas went up because, you know, much of our natural gas comes from um, you know, fracking inside, inside the United States, uh, right now anyways. So, um, I'm not sure if that's even slowed down at all to any extent. So, um, it's, it's a curious rise in price. I, I can't, I can't explain it.
[Robert Paine]: A lot of things have gone up in price and you can't explain it either. It's a global market and it doesn't matter if
[Barry Ingber]: we're producing our own, it still enters into the global capitalist market. So the price becomes the same as the global energy price for oil, for gas, for any commodity at all. For coffee, for cotton, for any commodity.
[Robert Paine]: Anyway, that's all I need to say about heat pumps at this time.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I would just briefly that I went through the process of deciding whether to get heat pumps and found it incredibly frustrating because everybody talked about something else to say. And most of them, I talked to Luke and just assumed what he was telling me was accurate because he wasn't trying to sell me anything, wasn't going to make any money out of it. But other than that, I got two or three different opinions about everything. The cost saving was one that was pretty much agreed on, at least winter cost saving wasn't the reason to do this. If you were using electric baseboard heating, you'd save some money, but you weren't gonna save any money on gas. But whether you had to disconnect your furnace, how well they worked in cooler weather, how many you needed, how much of a rebate you could get, I just found it so frustrating I gave up, which is my fault. I shouldn't give up so easily. But it is extraordinarily frustrating not being able to get a straight answer about anything, particularly when I had Luke's answers, which I regarded somewhat as gospel, because he's obviously knowledgeable and smart and wasn't trying to sell me anything. So that's my experience with the process. So if someone gets clear answers and wants to come by, I'll be happy to buy you dinner.
[Alicia Hunt]: So the one thing Jonathan is still on our email list some of you don't know that's my husband, who predated being on this committee before I worked for the city. And he actually looked at your presentation Bob when you sent it around today because he has gotten. three different companies to come out and give quotes for heat pumps at our house. And he got wildly different quotes with wildly different suggestions about what we should do. And so the one thing that he pulled out of there is he said, I wanna know more about this hiring Abode Energy through Green Energy Consumer Alliance to give me like neutral advice on what's going on here and which of these things makes the most sense. and honestly, to learn more about some of the incentives that aren't readily available yet. But I will tell you that there is an extremely, he's extremely interested in hiring and going through them to get some neutral advice to look at these different quotes and figure out what makes sense here.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: I think it is that in Cambridge, and I think in Brooklyn as well, the city has hired Councilors, advisors, whatever, and homeowners can get an hour or two of basically free advice, which presumably is not being affected by anybody putting anything in their pocket. But it is an extremely frustrating process.
[Martha Ondras]: And I have to say that even if the party you're dealing with is not trying to sell you something, which is rarely the case. Each house is different. Each system is that's already there is different. If my boiler was bought less than five years ago, it's a different equation than your boiler that was bought 20 years ago. that you'd be replacing. And people have said, well, you just have to put a lot of solar panels on your roof to reduce your, by the time they tell you all the things they want you to do to reduce your fuel use, I'm saying, well, why wouldn't I just do those things and not change my fuel system out? So it's like any other home remodeling project. It's not off the shelf, and it's not one size fits all. And I think people keep wanting there to be a quick answer. So it'll be interesting how these incentives play out.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you, Martha, again. I have to agree. And Benji, you don't have to take my word as gospel. But I definitely agree. This is a complicated process for my own house. It took me as an expert in architecture and in energy a ton of time. And I am definitely paying more than I would have with gas, I am paying about the same as I was with oil. And that was after a very substantial renovation. So paying a lot in order to pay the same amount is not really an equation that most people would go through. So it It would be great for things to be simple. It rarely is. And especially when we live in New England with nice, old, beautiful, creaky houses.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I know. I can tell you that I had Mass Save come in and evaluate my house today. To be honest with you, it wasn't terribly rigorous assessment. I can tell you that the fellow spent maybe 15 minutes in the house and asked me a bunch of questions, very generalized sort of stuff. And then, proceeded to send me some 10 documents with the name of my tenant on top instead of me, which was the most bizarre experience I've had.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: You can send that to me and I can send it to the residential managers for Mass Save.
[Unidentified]: That's not right.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It sounds like that was not a good performer of the Mass Save requirement.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I had somebody from Mass Save come out, and I thought they were quite helpful. I got some additional insulation in my basement, which there was some rebate or credit or something. So it was a couple of thousand dollars worth, and I paid $170 for it. And I could feel being in the basement, Drafts have been, so that part was quite useful. I think mass-saving audits tend to be, from everything I know and from anybody I've talked to, tend to be a good thing. The advice they give you is good, and there's a whole bunch of savings you can get on getting insulation and those kinds of things. So, and you need, if you're gonna do the heat pumps, you need that anyway. So that's something I would highly recommend, because I found that quite helpful.
[Barry Ingber]: should be there for for an hour or two. Yeah, that was that was they should be doing a blower door test. They should be replacing your your light bulbs for you. They should be weather stripping. I mean, that's
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Or they should at least be assessing everything, writing that down, giving you a comprehensive list of what will be done when you agree to have it be done. But yeah, typically things like light bulbs and simple weather stripping of doors is something that they can do right there on the spot. But setting up for insulation and more in-depth work does require a contract. But anyway, please send me those documents and we'll see.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Sure. I'll do. Thanks so much. I appreciate it. All right. Now for last item. The last item on the agenda is Alicia had alluded to giving us some information or having someone present information on the advanced stretch code. Alicia, can you chime in on that?
[Alicia Hunt]: Yes. Bill Forti, who's our building commissioner, and I met with Wren, sorry, I'm not gonna put your Wren's last name. She's one of the grad students in our office on Friday to go over the stretch code. Here we go. She put together some information for the city council, and we're, I think that where we landed is that we weren't quite ready to present this to the city council the way what the information that she has is more about. the facts of how the program works and less about the potential impacts. And one of the things that our building commissioner wanted to do was to look into how much more expensive does this make building buildings and how much harder, more expensive does it then make the buildings? And how would that impact development in Medford? And I know that the state has done some presentations on exactly that, but we were able to find slide shows, but not the presentation. When you look at the slides, it's not always clear without somebody explaining to you what's on those slides, which were the more expensive versus less expensive. Like there are slides that have greens and reds and positive numbers and negative numbers, but Bill and I interpreted them differently when we looked at them without somebody presenting them to us, for example. Um, I'm happy actually to, uh, share my screen and, and sort of do some, some high level. I don't know how high level this is. Um, share some of this information that Ren pulled together, um, for us, if that would be of interest to the committee.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I think it would be interesting to me. All right.
[Alicia Hunt]: So let me give it a quick there. I always overlook the share button. It's the big green one. So is that, I can't tell how big it is. Oh, and now there I could. Shall I zoom a little bit more? Yeah, that's better. Is that a better, you can see that better? Okay. So she pulled together, fun fact, for those of you who don't know, my first assignment for the city of Medford in 2010 was to get the city to pass the stretch code. We were one of the first communities in Massachusetts to pass it. And that had a lot to do with the fact that I didn't know that that was hard. And I didn't know that the city council wasn't very progressive. The mayor just told me to present it to them and get them to vote for it, and they did. So we were one of the first communities to pass it in 2010. And now there are 299 communities who have adopted it. So it's barely a stretch code. There are 360 communities in Massachusetts, right? So there are only 61 communities that have not adopted the stretch code. So then the stretch code will automatically get stronger without Medford doing anything. So as of January right now, these are, I think we've talked a bunch about what HRS ratings are. way of how energy efficient a building is taking out the people and how it's used, sort of looking at it objectively. So the HRS ratings are getting a little stricter, requiring heat vent recovery ventilation and EV ready. In July, there's some additional stuff kicking in for commercial and multifamily looking at, and that they're adding large renovations and additions to being covered by the stretch code. And then in July, 2024, then there's stricter requirements for residential buildings. This lower number, HRS 42 for mixed fuel and 45 for all electric. That's if we do nothing. And I'm gonna tell you that we are seeing HRS ratings in Medford in the high 40s and low 50s. Every HRS rating Every new construction residential building, I have to see the HRS rating for it before I sign it. So then the optimized stretch code is the special opt-in stretch code is supposed to be a stricter stretch code. Some of the questions is around the transition time, and I'm just gonna skip over some of this. This was the HRS rating. I don't remember where she got this. 140 for typical existing homes, typical new homes. We are not, in Massachusetts, they're not rating this high. The requirements been between, I'm sure Luke can give us the exact numbers, but between 50 and 60. And I've been seeing the ones in Medford are between 45 and 55 over the past few years, what's coming in. So there's also passive house, which we've talked about as a way of complying. So then when you look at, this is a table that the states provided comparing this newer stretch code and some of its phase-in, and then this opt-in. Some of the stuff is that the, if you see this greater than 4,000 square feet stuff, I will tell you that Medford does not have single family homes that big. One of the things that I wanted to check on, and maybe this is something that Luke would actually know, is if it's a two or three family, is that 4,000 number per unit or for the whole building?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I can answer that and I wanted to touch. So her score of 100 is based on the 2006 IECC code kind of standard house. And the hers scores are per unit. So each unit needs to have its own first rating. When you end up with multifamily, it can be a subset, so kind of a sampling of the many units in there. And there's a process for that. And as long as that sampling meets these requirements, then the building is considered to meet those requirements.
[Alicia Hunt]: So when we were, thank you. When we were looking at this, one of the things that we were sort of touching on is how does this apply and what does this mean in Medford? For example, my house is like 1,600 square feet. Large houses in Medford, I'm gonna say are like 2,500, 3,000 square feet. We don't see 4,000 square feet homes in Medford very often. Those are little mansions. And so the general feeling is that anything that's really strict on homes that are that big, great. Then we were looking at the under 4,000 square feet as being relevant in the city of Medford. and these numbers of HRSA 42 and HRSA 45, it's just, it's not that undoable.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I have- I'd like to jump in if I may. It does depend a little bit. There are cases where getting to 42 is quite challenging. We have had some passive house projects that are at about that level.
[Alicia Hunt]: Interesting. And does that include for new construction? Because then they said you can do passive house to comply. It's requiring ventilation, which it was already and having Evie ready spots, I gotta tell you people, we, we need Evie ready spots for parking. And in Medford, we currently require two parking spots for every single family home and 1.5 parking spots for every unit for more than a single family home, right? If it's two, three, four, five units. And then there's existing buildings. And we were just sort of comparing what was this, the stretch code versus the opt-in stretch code. And so for alterations, there is no difference. And then for, and honestly, I'm looking at some of this and I'm going, where is the difference between a HRSA 42 and a HRSA 42 over here, right? And a HRSA 45, the only one I'm seeing is in this greater than 4,000 square foot for single family homes. for the opt-in stretch code over the regular one. And then multifamily, there is nothing for the HRS rating that doesn't stand. I guess we kept looking at this going, where's the difference? And the differences are very subtle. Then we went to, I don't know if you wanted to add anything on that, Luke, because I was going to scroll down to commercial.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: I have a question. So there is a software that does this rating. Is that correct?
[Alicia Hunt]: The HERS rating?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah. Based on certain calculations. Yes, there are softwares. There are a couple of them that are accepted. And there is a rating system that is a nationally recognized process for generating the HERS score. And it takes it has to take into account the installation levels, the windows, etc. But yes, you plug that into software that then ultimately puts together this model.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: And then and then so so I guess this is a question for Alicia, do we have do we have ratings for any residential building here in Medford or?
[Alicia Hunt]: So every new residential building, when they're bought, they have to hire a HRS rater to do this assessment and to provide this. So it generates a document that indicates what the HRS rating for the new construction is. They have to provide me a copy of that document to get their occupancy permit in Medford.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So I assume this can be done on an old house too, right? So there's no reason to.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That brings up the point that is right in the center of this page right there. Yes, going forward, new renovations and additions will also have a requirement for a HRS score. So a HRS rater will need to come in and do a blower door test and look at what your windows and insulation are. And I will say that achieving a HERS 55 or 52 on an existing old home can be challenging. Right.
[Alicia Hunt]: And my understanding, though, is this is on the renovated portion or the added on portion. So if you add a couple of rooms on.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: But it's not really possible to do a HERS rating on just a. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. It's the whole house.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: So you can do this conceivably on an old house. Just get somebody to come and do it. How much does it cost to do?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That depends.
[Alicia Hunt]: But it's not something that we're encouraging residents to just do on their homes. There's not a great benefit for that. The benefit is around if you're making changes to your home, then you have a baseline and a comparison. but you wouldn't do it just to do it like the mass save audit, honestly, you did not have the right mass save audit. They should have done a real assessment of what upgrades and improvements you need to your building, what's there, what's not there. I've never spent less than an hour in a building, usually two hours with a mass save auditor.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: And I just. Oh, sorry.
[Martha Ondras]: I have a question, maybe to Luke. Is there mechanical ventilation in these houses once they're so tight?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If they are getting to be tight, then they will require ventilation. And that is also going to be part of the tightening up of any building. So yes, there are costs that would be associated with tightening and with adding ventilation. Because you cannot really tighten the building without doing that. I would note that this is only for projects that are going to be adding over 1,000 square feet to their existing home or if you're gutting the home. So a gut renovation would fall into this or adding a large new floor or a new wing to your home. would trigger this. So it's a substantial component.
[Unidentified]: Thank you.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: But it wouldn't affect you just renovating a few rooms.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right. If you renovate your kitchen or a bathroom, you're not going to trigger this. So this is the residential side of it. And then there's the, sorry, I think I'm going to skip over a lot of this. This is some of the details in it. This is how you can comply. These are the words that go with the chart up above. And then there's commercial construction. And that's where things get much more complicated because there are different types of commercial buildings. They've split it up into over 20,000 square feet, high ventilation buildings, labs, hospitals, and multifamily. small commercial buildings and multifamily, just because the buildings are very different. So something I've been watching is some of the requirements in Cambridge over the years. And years ago, they voted for net zero for certain kinds of new construction. And at that time, they had set like 2030 as the goal for net zero for lab buildings, not because they wanted to encourage lab, but because they actually use a huge amount of ventilation and air to be safe. So here's some of the... Some of what struck me about making this decision is if you notice there's the updated stretch code column and that we don't really have a choice unless we're gonna repeal the stretch code. And then there's the opt-in stretch code. And I noticed that for all these dormitories, fire, police station, libraries, offices, schools, post offices and town halls, greater than 20,000 square feet, same as updated stretch code. commercial high ventilation buildings and all other buildings greater than 20,000 square feet, same as updated. Small commercial buildings, same as updated stretch code. So then there's group R buildings with multiple individual dwelling units. And I don't actually know what a group R building is, but then there's some more details, compliance paths as noted in the table. And then it's the additional commercial energy efficiency requirements where you start to get into there being some differences. What I was sort of focused on is trying to understand where is there a difference between the opt-in and the regular stretch code? And that's where we've been sort of looking at it going, and will this make a real difference to buildings in Medford? and at which point is it just window dressing if we approve it, or is it good to approve it because at least then we're making a statement? But I don't know, Luke, if you want to speak to any of this.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: I'll start by saying I think the group R buildings are residential, so multi-family buildings, and they do have different requirements for multi-family projects. that essentially say if you do the specialized opt-in code, then essentially passive house becomes a requirement as opposed to just a pathway. And other than that, I have to say I have not spent as much time looking into the other commercial requirements and what those differences are.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, so that's sort of what we're trying to sort of understand. And I did, like I said, I found several different presentations, but what I found were the slides and we really need to get, I actually shot a note over to somebody at DOER to see if I could get some of my questions answered on Friday and it being Monday, I'm not surprised that I haven't heard back yet.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Okay, I would like to inform everyone that we are at time for this meeting. So if there's any last minute comments.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you for presenting that Alicia.
[Unidentified]: Thank you very much, Alicia. Exactly.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Thank you. All right, so can someone give a motion to adjourn, please?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Motion to adjourn.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Second.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: And thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: There we go. Thank you so much, everyone.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Everybody in May, take care. Thank you.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_11]: Absolutely. Take care, everyone. Bye-bye.