[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think we can get started. Do a quick roll call. Make sure we got everybody. Here, we'll just start at the top. Just let me know if you're here. Lois.
[SPEAKER_06]: Here.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Benji.
[SPEAKER_06]: Recording in progress.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Thank you. You got Benji?
[Martha Ondras]: You're muted, Benji.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: How about that?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: There we go. Awesome. On the record. Barry? Present. Loretta? I'm not seeing. Kathleen? Nope. Luke? Present. Martha?
[Martha Ondras]: Present.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Dan? Present. Bob? Present. Jessica? John? Will is here. Sarah? Here. And Paul? Hello. Awesome. Great. I'm not seeing any guests with us right now to introduce. So with that, has everyone had a chance to review the minutes that Brenda sent out? Great. I would entertain a motion to accept and we can get started.
[Brenda Pike]: Can I suggest that we accept it with the revision of changing the... Oh, no, never mind. That was corrected before. I take it back.
[Unidentified]: Oh, good.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I would entertain a motion to accept these and you can get started.
[Lois Grossman]: So moved. I'll second.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Great. We'll run down nice and quick. First big vote. Accept these minutes. Just say aye as we go. Lois? Aye. Benji? Aye. Barry? Aye.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Awesome. Luke? I have to abstain. I wasn't there, but they look good.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Awesome. Martha?
[Martha Ondras]: Aye.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Dan? Aye. Bob? Aye. Will? Aye. Sarah?
[Lois Grossman]: Aye.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: And Paul? Aye. Motion passes, minutes accepted. Let's jump right into it. Let's grab some updates from Brenda. What have we been up to?
[Brenda Pike]: So much. As I was putting this together, I thought, oh, no, I should probably do slides or something, but I didn't have a chance to. But maybe for the next meeting, it might be helpful if I put it together in slides for folks. But for Electrify Medford, the energy coaches who can receive stipends are finishing up their paperwork with human resources right now. And the coach trainings start tomorrow with an in-person session at City Hall. And then the next four trainings will be online webinars from ABODE with a Q&A session with ABODE afterwards. Thank you for everyone here who signed up to be coaches. And just a reminder to Martha and Paul that I still need to do some one-on-one interviews with you just so that I can better match you up with residents who sign up.
[Martha Ondras]: If you send me some times, Brenda, I'm sure we can find a time. Yep. Sounds good.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep. Same there, Paul. Great. And we have a very basic web page on the city's website right now. Let me drop it into the chat here, which is medfordma.org slash electrify hyphen Medford. And we have an introductory flyer. Let me pull this up here. So this is just a first draft of a very basic flyer here, but we have a QR code that takes you to a sign-up form that collects some basic information that then we will follow up with. And then the coaches that folks are matched to will then do a more in-depth questionnaire while having a conversation with them. And then we're going to have more information Then the website or this this flyer obviously has on the go green Medford website that is not all available yet. But that's where that's going to be the main repository of information, including, you know, basic information about the technologies and incentives and technical assistance that's available. And then, of course, there's the coach sign-up form, because we will continue to be accepting people as coaches as we go through the program. But I will send this flyer out to everyone after the meeting, and I would love to get your feedback on this and the website. We don't have this flyer translated yet, but we will. Yeah, and then when we get more detailed information up in the Go Green Medford site, I'll send that along to you as well to get some feedback. I think that's everything for Electrify Medford, unless folks have questions.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Looks like a great start. And all of those connections are to the Go Green Medford. Yeah, I'm just following some of those links. That is great.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep. Oh, and we have been connected with a professor like a marketing professor over at Northeastern who lives in Medford and is really interested in helping out with the program. So he and some of his students and some of his colleagues are going to be helping us out doing some sort of tweaking of the messaging for the Electrify Medford program, doing some A-B testing of different messaging out there to try to perfect it as we move along. in the very early stages of that. Yeah, Martha?
[Martha Ondras]: Yeah, I think that's great. And I know there's a Tufts professor who has been doing research on what makes people decide to install solar and how much of it is dependent on their social network or social interactions. So that might be an interesting. And I actually spoke with one of the doctoral students who was working on this. So that might be an interesting person or group to help inform what we're doing. That would be great. What's the name of the professor? I don't know. So I'll have to ask some people. I think it was urban planning program.
[Brenda Pike]: That makes sense. That was my program. That's where I graduated from.
[SPEAKER_06]: Me too.
[Brenda Pike]: Let's see what else here. So for the community electricity aggregation, just confirming that we did renew our electricity supply contract that expires at the end of the year. We increased the additional renewable energy content to 10% for a lower cost than people are paying now, and that's going to be locked in for the next three years. We're not doing a lot of messaging about this now. We'll start sharing that with the public in September, because the changeover won't happen until the end of December. So we don't want to confuse people by talking with them about it now. But just to let you know that that's coming, and I'm really excited about it.
[Lois Grossman]: Do we have to reapply if we're part of it?
[Brenda Pike]: No, you don't have to reapply. Although we are switching to a different vendor, so they're a different supplier, not a different administrative vendor. So there might be a, you know, there's a possibility there could be some hiccups along the way that we'd have to deal with, but we'll just be really aware of that and make sure that they're If they do crop up, we're prepared for them.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Brenda, if I may ask, do we know roughly what percentage of Medford citizens participate and how many have opted out, just generally speaking?
[Brenda Pike]: I don't have that off the top of my head, but I can find it out and let you know.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: The statistics are available? Yes. Cool.
[Brenda Pike]: Um, let's see for the curbside composting program as of well as of two weeks ago now, so I don't have current numbers, but 112 people had had signed up. To start now. And adding that to the people who are already paying for the program. have a total of that was a total of 952 people who are currently composting. And then an additional 912 have signed up to start in July. Yeah, Dan.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: I'll add one thing. So we had, we had people over this weekend for a kid's birthday party. And There were three people who mentioned that they had signed up for the program and learned about it from the billboard on 93. Um, so whoever made that decision, uh, that, that seems to be a huge, um, uh, uh, success, um, and getting a lot of people to sign up.
[Brenda Pike]: That's great to hear. Wow. A lot of bang for the buck there. Um, I also have. these lovely door hangers in my office. And we're looking for people to go door to door to get the word out. If you're interested in helping out even just for your street, you can pick up door hangers in my office and sign up for your street on Garbage to Garden put together this little spreadsheet that I just dropped in the chat to Organize people mothers out front are going to be doing some door to door outreach as well. But, yeah, it would be great if if folks on the energy committee could help as well. And also garbage to garden is having a bulk compost and bin distribution event on May 18th at City Hall. So we applied for an earmark to help the Medford Housing Authority replace the Willis Ave Community Center. And the idea is that it will be replaced with a center that's larger and in much better condition with heat pumps, with solar panels, so they can offer more services all year round, and it can serve as sort of a trusted location. for people to go to during emergencies like power outages. And right now it offers like after school and summer programs, food distribution, computer learning, but they would like to add other programs there they don't have space for, like moving to work, family self-sufficiency programs, additional reading programs, daycare, senior programs. So we're really happy to work with them on this earmark request. These federal requests are, it's a long process. So we'll know this summer if the project is going to be supported by our congressional delegation. But we wouldn't be officially awarded the funding until the summer of next year. And this is part of a larger effort to have multiple resilient community centers, or also known as resilience hubs around the city. I think we've talked before about the Andrews School having some electrical rewiring done to put more things on the backup circuit, so that could also be used as a resilience hub. So for the Andrews and McGlynn HVAC upgrades, We presented to the school committee last week about our plans to replace the heating and cooling systems there with heat pumps and condensing boilers backup. And we're in the process of hiring an owner's agent, an owner's project manager and a design engineer to design the system. But I also want to add that at the same meeting, the school committee passed a resolution banning the purchase of fossil fuel equipment for schools unless the school committee authorizes it. So they authorized it for this project. And moving forward, we have to go to them to with justification for why we would be installing a fossil fuel system. Oh, I think we have guests. Welcome if we do we want to move our agenda. Up, I can come back to the updates afterwards if that's helpful.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I, I'm not hearing anything yet, but. I trust that they'll maybe message us if they're feeling ready. I told them 7 o'clock, so we'll give them a couple more minutes.
[Brenda Pike]: Sounds good. Okay, I'll keep going then. Any questions or anything about the school HVAC upgrades?
[Martha Ondras]: I have a question about, this may be in the resilience planning, but we have a number of institutions in the city You have Atrius Health, we have the Lawrence, Old Lawrence Hospital, which I think is part of a larger healthcare organization now. And we have United Healthcare in Wellington. We obviously have Tufts and some Leslie presence, the Leslie Nursing School. And I'm wondering if you reached out to working with those partner, them as partners on resilience for the community. I guess I got interested in this because I was researching what Boston Medical Center has been doing with their community to create a resilience hub that supports the community in times of weather events or crises.
[Brenda Pike]: That's interesting. OK. So Boston Medical Center has the space to be able to be that location during the event of an emergency?
[Martha Ondras]: It's not so much that they provide a space. They provide energy backup and energy to nonprofits and organizations around them, like the police station. They provide the energy to the facilities that would be used. And they have a number of programs, but one of them is that they have an energy plant, which can survive. Because they're a hospital, they have to have the power to last three days during a blackout. So they are extending that to the community. But it just in general, the idea, it occurred to me the idea of tapping these institutions which have determination of need requirement. They have requirements to give back to the community where they're located. And it might be nice to start engaging them.
[Brenda Pike]: That's interesting. I'm not sure if we've spoken to them before. I certainly haven't. I'll talk to Alicia to see if she has. That's really helpful. We got an electric street sweeper in January, thanks to, in part to some funding from MassDEP. And we started using it during the big sweep in April. And there's some mixed feedback here. The operator likes it a lot better. He says it doesn't leave kind of a snail trail of dirt behind it that he has to go back and to get a second time. And it's a lot quieter. DPW folks described as creepy quiet when the brushes aren't on. But the DPW is troubleshooting some charging issues with it and working with the manufacturer to resolve it. So, I don't know if that's something we're going to, they're going to end up being able to fix those issues or if they're going to try to switch to a different, model of it completely. So we'll see if that if that sticks around, but they're definitely excited to have the electric street sweeper. And we've also been awarded a grant to buy an electric refuse truck for for park maintenance. So we contract out the actual trash pickup to a third party. So that but this would be a city owned refuse truck that we would be using for city trash pickup. We held another training on the stretch and specialized energy code for building inspectors at the library on May 1st. And this one was focused on the commercial code. The first one was on the residential code. And then after this, we'd like to hold one for building owners, developers, contractors, essentially anyone in the public who's interested in getting into the details of this. before July 1st. We have some events coming up. We had a couple of events in the last couple of weeks. There was the Boston Glory Renewable Fest and the community cleanup all the weekend of April 26th. I think that the Renewable Fest was maybe more of a visibility event than the actual interactive event. We did have a few people come over and speak with us, but most people were coming and going sort of directly to their seats. So we didn't talk to a lot of people directly. But it was an interesting and a fun event. And the community cleanup was on the 26th. That was more of a sort of a distributed thing. So we weren't using that to get information out about things. But I think there were more than 400 people signed up across the city to do the cleanup. So that was pretty exciting. We have a rain barrel distribution event on May 8th. Lois, it sounds like you might know more about this than I do at this point. It sounds like you're very involved in planning that.
[Lois Grossman]: Well, Alicia does the planning, but I've participated three or four times now. I like it. It's outdoors, it's physical. And it's nice to help people do it. So if anybody has time Wednesday afternoon, I think we're going three to seven.
[Brenda Pike]: Yep. But you also don't have to stay the whole time. I think we need the most help at three o'clock and at five o'clock. So three o'clock is when the barrels come in and we're getting them off the truck. And five o'clock is when the most people come through.
[Lois Grossman]: I usually get kids from the school to do the unloading. I've done it also, and it's not that difficult, but usually there's a troop full of kids that are out there doing it all and having a fine time.
[Brenda Pike]: I think that this Wednesday, it's one of the half days for the school, so there probably won't be a lot of kids around.
[Lois Grossman]: Well, I think these are volunteers. They have these programs where they have to do so many hours of volunteer work. And I think a lot of times that's, they sign up to do it.
[Brenda Pike]: Nice.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Apologies, where did you say this is? This event?
[Lois Grossman]: High school, in the parking lot out front.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Great, thank you.
[Lois Grossman]: You know, we need people to direct traffic because at some point it lines up all the way down the driveway onto Winthrop Street and You know, we have to cope with stuff like that.
[Brenda Pike]: Sounds like to speed things up, you go down the line, giving people sort of tickets, color coded tickets that they can show when they get up there to get their barrel.
[Lois Grossman]: And then we have to double up the lines because there's so many people we pull people up. There's a lot of volunteers, and it's a nice effort.
[Martha Ondras]: Great. I have something to throw in on the government side. And I'm putting the link in the chat. MassDOT has a meeting Wednesday night, the 8th, about the intersection of Main Street with South Street in that area. And it's not only an area that's incredibly important to Medford. residents for walkability and safety and connectivity. It's also an opportunity to ask MassDOT about some other Medford issues, like I know they are cooking a plan for some of our rotaries, but they haven't talked about it publicly. So I hope to go to that meeting and I thought other people might want to know about it.
[Lois Grossman]: And you put it in the chat, Martha?
[Martha Ondras]: Yes, I did. Can you see it?
[Lois Grossman]: I'm going to look for it.
[Martha Ondras]: It says NASA.gov event.
[Brenda Pike]: When you click on it, it says the link is broken, but that's only because there's a period at the end. So if you delete the period, then it should be broken.
[Martha Ondras]: Oh, OK. That's my bad. Yeah.
[Brenda Pike]: It sounds like this was something that was planned sort of relatively short notice. So there's been a flurry of activity the last few days trying to get the word out about it.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, that is a very important intersection with a lot of challenges. Yep.
[Brenda Pike]: In terms of events, I'm also dropping in the chat a link to this spreadsheet. Actually, let me share my screen for a second too. For potential tabling events for the Electrify Medford program. And we've talked about a lot of these before, but this is just a spreadsheet we're just going to have as a central place if people are interested in signing up to help table for the events. And if there are other things that aren't on here that you think would be a good thing to add, feel free to just drop it at the end of the list or to email me about it. The big ones are obviously Circle the Square on June 15th. and the Harvest Your Energy Festival on October 19th. And for both of those, I'm going to have some cute carnival type games actually that I recently saw at a conference that we were able to rent for these events that have a climate change related theme to each one of them. So hopefully that'll be a nice draw to pull people in to chat. I know it's after seven o'clock, Will. Do you think we should pause here?
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: I think so. I can, oh, I guess we're just in time. All right. Yeah, without further ado, State Senator Mike Barrett has joined us to tell us a little bit about what's going on here in Mass. Welcome, welcome.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thanks, Will. Very happy to be here. Tell me about Electrified Medford.
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, so this is our decarbonization outreach campaign. So we're going to be talking about energy efficiency, renewables, electric vehicles, anything else that people want to talk about. If they want to talk about biking or anything, we'd be happy to talk with them about it. and connect with them with technical assistance and with incentives and other programs that are available to them.
[SPEAKER_09]: Has the city adopted the specialized stretch energy code as of yet?
[Brenda Pike]: Yes, we have. Congratulations. We've held two in-person training sessions for building inspectors.
[SPEAKER_09]: I heard, yes, I've been spying on you. Nice. I wanted to hear a little bit about local discussion before we talked about anything statewide. So I have been I have been listening in for a while. I'm very impressed with the two workshops that you're either teed up or have already conducted. Well, I'm very happy to be here for the informally because there's no formal designation, the Joint Committee on telecommunications, utilities and energy. long name, is effectively the Climate Policy Committee. And there's a House chair, Jeff Roy. I'm the Senate chair. But all senators take a lively. You happen to have a terrific state senator, Pat Jalen, who's a very nice person and as a result is sometimes underestimated. She's nice, but extremely persistent and very principled. And she has a major impact on climate policy herself. So as you guys may know, two major climate bills have passed in the last two sessions, one bill per session. Each of these bills has had 50 to 60 moving parts, sometimes related to one another, but sometimes operating in disparate areas from EV charging to offshore wind. So the roadmap bill passed in 2021, actually, I guess, signed technically in 2022, because Governor Baker vetoed it at first, was a major piece with 50 to 60 segments. And then we passed the so-called DRIVE Act. I say so-called because these are informal monikers attached to these bills that have formal names as well. The DRIVE Act began as an offshore wind piece, but expanded just like the earlier roadmap bill to include everything under the sun, and that's partially because legislators are engaged and come at us with all kinds of ideas and we try to accommodate them. So in 2024, my prediction is that you're going to see a third major omnibus climate thingy, I've been working extremely hard on it since before Thanksgiving. Someone actually has to do the legal writing and I enjoy that work and I've spent a great deal of time doing it. But the rest of the time is spent talking to other legislators who have ideas of their own to represent their districts. And then there also have been a number of working groups we set up because of these two earlier conglomerations to do all manner of things. And each of these working groups or commissions takes its work or their work very seriously. So there have been drafts on everything under the sun. There has been a clean energy transmission working group. There has been an electric vehicle intergovernmental coordinating council. There has been a working group to rethink GCEP, which is the program set up, the gas safety enhancement program set up to plug leaky underground gas pipes. And there is a commission on siting and permitting, which just reported last week. And you can see its report, which has a lot, which touches on the city, not explicitly Medford, but city government and local government across the state very intimately. So if you Google M-A-C-E-I-S-P, clean energy infrastructure siting and permitting, C-E-I-S-P, a page will come up and you can take a look at the draft, actually it's the report. Now there are many steps still, and this just gives you a sense about how complex the legislative processes, although you already know that because you take part in city government, which I know is complex as well. But in this particular instance, we had this commission appointed by the governor, representing at least five major interests that have to do with the siting and permitting of everything from major transmission lines through the city, but also offshore windmills, offshore wind farms and ground-mounted solar fields where they technically, and they're usually found in Central and Western Mass where the land is available. So everything from clean energy generation, and that would be wind and solar primarily, to transmission and distribution, routing the stuff to your house, but also taking the electrons from your rooftop solar panels and distributing them. to the grid. So we need a bi-directional grid delivering stuff to you, but also taking stuff that you generate and distributing it back to the grid. And interestingly, the current electric grid in Massachusetts is not bi-directional. It was built to take energy or electrons from a few central power plants, fossil fuel typically, and to deliver them unit-directionally to you or to the city. The idea that we would have to treat you as an energy generator, which is a good thing, because of your solar panels, maybe your batteries in the future, and take those electrons and take them away from you back to the community at large is a new concept. I mean, new in the sense that it's 10 or 20 years old. And the grid isn't built yet to do that. I'm getting us off on a tangent, but the long and the short of it is this, that the siting and permitting process has to do with creating a true bidirectional grid, but also making sure that offshore windmills can get electrons to the city. And that for that matter, a ground mounted solar field out in Irving could transmit its clean electricity toward Eastern Mass where the load is, where the customers tend to be. Here's why this is a so we're going to have a major bill and it starts with the siting and permitting thing. That's going to be hot and and is going to need your engagement. And also, we're going to need your feedback. You might pass it through your state reps. You might pass it to Senator Jalen or you might communicate directly to to me and to the house chair of TUE. But we need to hear about whether we're striking the right balance. And here's the balance that we are attempting to strike, and it's why it's so delicate. NIMBYism is real. And NIMBYism, that might be unfair, because a lot of times rejections of projects at the local level are heartfelt. and well-supported, but sometimes they're not. Sometimes it's just resistance to housing or resistance to, in this case, energy facilities. So the question is, how do we balance local control and the local voice with the need to realize a statewide set of objectives? There's no magic answer. I can promise you that this commission has considered every conceivable nook and cranny of the issue. And what that report posted online recommends, I was the Senate's sole member. Chair Roy was the House's sole member. Most folks were from the executive branch or the private sector. And we all voted on this stuff. What that recommendation essentially, and I'm oversimplifying just a little bit, recommends is this. that energy facilities defined as both generation and transmission be treated in a rough fashion the way that we treat housing under Chapter 40B, which is to say that in lieu of a whole bunch of separate permits issued locally and considered locally, seriatim, one at a time, there would be a comprehensive permit that a developer, it could be Eversource in the case of distribution and transmission, it could be a solar developer company, although they would tend, as I say, to look to central and western Massa sites, but they would apply for a single consolidated permit. If the city granted the permit, but with restrictions or alternatively denied the permit, that denial or grant with restrictions would be appealable to an enhanced energy facility siting board, a statewide entity that already exists. The difference from the current state of affairs is that, remember, all the local stuff, the Conservation Commission, Board of Public Health, Zoning Board, City Council, of course, all of that stuff would be rolled up into a one comprehensive proceeding at the local level. It could then be appealed if a denial were issued locally or if the developer felt that the conditions were onerous. And then you would have this enhanced state board consider the local situation. I know some of you are lawyers, de novo, meaning that they would take a look at the facts fresh and make the same determination that Medford had made locally not the same outcome, but it would consider the same ball of wax, the same complex pros and cons, that decision would be controlling. So essentially, and there could be a way, and I shouldn't prejudge this, there could be a sense in which this is a little less controversial for a city than it is for a town and in particular, a small town. I don't know. You'll have to tell me in this conversation how consequential this all seems to you. But the long and the short of it is one comprehensive permit considered locally, appealable in one fell swoop, not over time, but at the end of the local consideration, by the way, would be time limited, probably 15 months. So everything has to happen in Medford in 15 months. If it doesn't, it's considered approved. So there's no option to delay. And nor is there an option to appeal in order to obtain a delay. It goes up to the statewide entity, which itself has only 15 months. After that, you could litigate it, but only a single appeal to the SJC. And that essentially means that this process we all read about and that some of you know about, where there are multiple proceedings locally, and then they go up to some state entity. It could be this Energy Facilities Society Board. It could be the Department of Public Utilities. That could have multiple aspects to it. And then there could be lots of litigation. All of that would end. It would be one stop locally, one stop at the Energy Facility Society Board and then one unified appeal to the Supreme Court of the state. The idea is that all of this would get done even in the case of highly contentious projects within a reasonably finite period of time, perhaps two and a half years. Compared to the present where projects can extend to four years, six years and beyond once you count the litigation delays, this would be a much shorter process. Now the Senate, I just want to mention one other thing, although there's a lot more we could talk about. Here's where the legislative battle is going to develop, possibly. I can't judge the activities of my colleagues, or I should say their interests, but Here's one overarching question that I would be interested to hear from you all about. This siting and permitting thing, I'm sure you now realize, is a big deal. But it also accomplishes a very important thing, which is it builds out the electric grid, which does need expansion. It is outmoded. I'm sure you've read that occasionally. It's so true. It's outmoded across the entire United States. And in older states like Massachusetts, it's particularly in need of a major refresh. However, it's going to raise everyone's electric bills. This stuff doesn't come cheap. It's necessary to save the planet. These are very climate conscious construction projects. But new construction, especially an entire redo of the entire system for really for the Northeast, but we're talking about Massachusetts, major short and middle term costs. A number of legislators, and I happen to be one of them, feel that we need to match the upsizing of the electric grid with the downsizing of the natural gas system. The grand bargain I would like to see the legislature forge is that if we're going to charge you a lot more for this, as important as it is, and we're going to inconvenience you a little because local prerogatives are going to be infringed in the interest, we think, of necessary expedience, then we should take down the size of the gas grid safely so that people remain warm and safe. But still, it could be downsized and save people some money at the same time that we're upsizing electricity and well, on balance, costing you a little money. I'd like to see the upsizing and the downsizing conjoined in one major piece of legislation in the next 120 days. And I think, by the way, I think that's what's going to happen. But the counter argument is that we should just do the upsizing of the electric grid, that that's important enough in and of itself. a worthy objective in and of itself, and that we should save the consideration of the future of natural gas to another day. That is going to be a major debate. And I would be interested in what you guys have to say. I won't talk about all kinds of other things that this bill is likely to involve, because I want to hear from you. But I just want you all to know that this major consideration of the role of local government and approving clean energy infrastructure, broadly defined, is going to be teed up over the, and has to be resolved by the end of July when we go out of session, because we're all running for re-election this year. So this is a short year for us, and all this stuff has to happen, if it's going to happen, by the end of July. Three months, I guess that's three months from now. Piece of cake. Yeah. Hey, Luke.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Hi, and thank you, Senator Barrett. That is fantastic summary and very interesting. And it sounds like powerful moves are underway. I am an energy efficiency nerd and have been on the bleeding edge for quite some time. I do have to say I appreciate the direction you are pushing and legislatively and socially we will benefit, I believe, overall. But I think that the point that you made near the end is a very real and frankly, to me, somewhat scary one. I certainly pay considerably more for my electric heating in my 1920s house that I have put a lot of effort into weatherizing and air sealing and et cetera. It is not easy to make this transition affordable. And while I appreciate the thought that downsizing the gas network would provide some savings, I'm not quite clear as to how that really will happen. And I do recognize that upscaling our electric infrastructure and having everyone electrify There are definite costs associated with that. And some of our group are working hard on trying to understand how we could not only do that, reduce costs and electrify for ourselves, but also have a focus on those who need more help and who can't afford to make this kind of transition. We need to make sure that as we push through big changes like this, that we are not adversely impacting those who really can't afford to go through this. Our most vulnerable communities and our most vulnerable residents. So I just wanted to ask about that.
[SPEAKER_09]: So there are all kinds of concrete things to think about that kind of make my general comments, I hope, more real, realer. I'm not quite sure what the grammatical expression there is. Consider that any gas pipe we currently put into the ground, let's say it is in the interest of replacing a leaky pipe underlying a Medford Street. That new pipe, is going to have a useful life of 30 to 50 years. And it is financed, typically, for as long as 30 years. So when I talk about saving people some money, what I'm talking about is constraining as smartly and as safely as we can, putting new pipes into the ground when they last so long and keep us on a fossil fuel for so long. Now, let me tell you how one would do this. There happens to be, I know this sounds strange, but there happens to be a right to gas that doesn't exist. There's no right to be warm in Massachusetts, but there actually is a law. It's a single paragraph. that gives you the right as a homeowner or a business owner to insist that gas specifically be extended to your property if gas is available in the community at large and is running on a thoroughfare near your property. We would like to rescind that statute. We would like to give the DPU the alternative responsibility to make sure you stay warm and that you stay safe. But we want to give the DPU the ability to consider a heat pump, or maybe network geothermal, maybe weatherizing. Or for that matter, it could be a tankable fossil fuel, which sounds odd, except that if you replace natural gas with propane, the great thing about propane is you could walk away from that. in five to 10 years with the state government's help and stay warm in the interim, whereas the natural gas infrastructure is in there for the long haul and you'll be paying for it forever. So I would like to constrain expansions of the system. I'd like to rescind the right to gas. And there are a number of provisions. I could be very discreet. There are about a half a dozen. that unnecessarily tilt the playing field today in favor of putting more of that long-lived infrastructure under your feet. I think we can do better, and we have to, because you can't ask people to pay an enhanced electric bill and keep the natural gas bill where it is. I think you have to give them some sort of relief. The Wall Street Journal today, but it's really only representative of articles that I see every week in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the LA Times, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. I subscribe to all these newspapers and scan them for climate stuff. The Wall Street Journal today has a report on the rebellion against clean energy. worldwide, especially in Western Europe and the US. California is the case in point for the United States at its sites. Why is there a rebellion against clean energy? Because of costs. And so you're beginning to see, especially, and it's enabled by people like Trump and by authoritarian people elsewhere in positions of power around the world, you're beginning to see real pushback not on the basis of client denialism, but people basically instead saying, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. I can't pay for this anymore. Now, they may be misdiagnosing a problem. They may be blaming clean energy infrastructure for costs that are attributable to something else. Politically, as a working politician, it certainly matters to me if they're attributing blame, but it's not dispositive. What's controlling for me is that there is a conservative reaction against climate policy that I need to abate. I need to make sure it doesn't become too extreme in Massachusetts. So I'm looking for a way to tell people, look, you may have to pay a little more for this, but it's a good cause saving the planet. And meanwhile, we're going to give you some relief over here. That's what I'm looking for as an equation. I can tell you, I mean, just to be candid about it, that the House of Representatives doesn't buy into this trade off. They want to just, I mean, I'm talking about some leaders in the Mass House, not your local legislators necessarily. They want to just go with building out the grid. And I respectfully maintain that we've got to give people a little bit of a break as we ask them to sacrifice more over here. So what do you guys think about this whole issue of a consolidated permit at the local level in place of a- Do you mind if I ask you- Oh yeah, I'm sorry, yeah. I'm sorry, Dan, yeah.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, I have a question, and sorry, I'm not too involved in state level politics, so let me know if this- isn't a great question, but I'm interested how, on this sort of legislation, you're working with the federal government, so FERC, and also neighboring states, given Massachusetts is part of ISO New England. There have been multiple transmission projects trying to bring clean energy, bring hydropower from Quebec, from Canada, down through Maine to Massachusetts. FERC recently issued FERC Order 2023 that is trying to simplify the interconnection queue. But still, New England is one of the worst regions for actually interconnecting new projects in the country. I'm interested in how, when you're developing this legislation, how, if at all, you're working with other neighboring states or FERC and the federal government to kind of make these decisions and come up with a good policy that takes into account we import so much of our energy here.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, it's a great question, Dan. But the answer, I'm pleased to say, is a great deal. We are up on that stuff for a whole bunch of reasons. The cooperation with other states is being led by Massachusetts, which is the largest of the six New England states. There's a lot of conversation that goes on with New York, too. But especially with respect to our five New England state neighbors, as you know, I'm sure you are up on this stuff, We just, for the very first time, issued new RFPs for more offshore wind farms. And the three states, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, effectively created a kind of sub-regional market. We said, as a three-state consortium, we can give you all kinds of market here, not just the 7 million people in Massachusetts, but the three million in Connecticut, the one and a half million or so in Rhode Island. You, the developer of an offshore wind farm, will be able to sell into this larger region, half of New England, if you will, and three quarters of its population and its users. So give us a better price because we're cooperating together and giving you a shot at more revenue. So there's a lot of interstate activity. As it happens, the people working for Maura Healey, and this doesn't happen all the time in state government, did not happen necessarily in the early years of the Baker administration, but it's happening now. All the people around Healey who are doing this stuff know all their colleagues in other states because Healey, of course, was an attorney general. She had a very large energy and environment division, and the people who are heading up policy for her as governor, been working on these ideas for years with their colleagues in other places, because there have been a lot of New England, to your point, we have a New England wide grid, so the conversations are structured. And similarly, there's now a lot of exchange with FERC and with ISO New England, with the feds, for a whole bunch of reasons, including just the recognition that state and federal stuff are intermeshed. And just to give you one example of how they're interrelated, but there are dozens, of course, you could cite. A transmission line of a certain capacity is actually regulated by the federal government, especially if it crosses state lines. More local lines, the sort running through the city, are distribution lines and are managed entirely by state government. Obviously, there's a continuum between the interstate grid and the local one. And so there have always been conversations. But the people running the New England network, the New England network of wires, have really, especially with Trump's first term, ISO New England pivoted. They realized that a lot of action was going to have to take place at the state level, because for a while, federal action was going to be bollocked up. there was a turn toward encouraging conversations between the managers of the New England system and the individual states, including people like me. So conversations have been pretty robust, I'm pleased to say.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: Great. That's good to hear. I think this is really interesting legislation. I know other states too. I think California and Kaiso and Texas as well have encouraged more distribution level generation being built. And I think it's a great idea and a great way to get around some of the backlog. So really excited to hear this. Oh, thank you, Dan.
[SPEAKER_09]: I appreciate that. What do you guys think about the local government piece and the ways it can be harmonized with this expedited decision making we're striving for?
[Alicia Hunt]: Can I ask a question?
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yes.
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Alicia Hunt]: Hi, Alicia. Hi. So, yeah, I'm the director of planning sustainability. Sorry, I was late this evening. I find it interesting. I'm actively advising the board that is hearing several 40 B's in Medford. And some of the spin on it was that they don't have to follow Medford ordinances and laws. And this is, how they get around that. However, they actually have to explicitly ask for a waiver for everything that they don't want to have to follow. And I think that the whole thing isn't a bad idea for solar. I assume this is ground mount. Like obviously if it's on somebody's house, it's a totally different situation, right?
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that's right. It won't apply to that.
[Alicia Hunt]: Right, if it's on a building. So I think being very careful about how it's being framed is important and that comparing it to the 40B process in a lot of communities, that's a very negative process that says, We are not following, we don't have to follow local laws. And we're exempting ourselves from them, which just has a negative connotation, which in fact, they're actually asking for waivers and there's a board that's going to review all the waivers, et cetera. So I think some of it is the framing. And I've also seen us drag those out for the full amount of the legal time. And I'd hate to see projects that would have gotten permitted faster somehow get caught up in that process. And I just say that not because I disagree with the idea, but it's just something to watch for as you're moving forward and where you're talking about it, right? In Medford, it's got this weird bad taste and we're not the only community.
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's a very good point. And by the way, the comprehensive permit isn't the only route that a project could take. If the project developers engage with you all early and things look like they can be worked out amongst you all, then the developer needn't take the comprehensive permit route. It could instead go through a regular sequence of local boards And that of course would be preferable, I think, because there'd be more buy-in and a better feeling about. However, as a working politician who represents eight communities in all, one city, Waltham and seven towns, I can tell you that some of the opposition to local infrastructure improvements has been virulent. I'm thinking of a case in my district where the immediate abutters to an old abandoned railroad line that Eversource proposed to run a transmission line down the center. In other words, it was going to be electric wires next to this abandoned railroad, overgrown ties. And the immediate abutters, the backyards ran up against the railroad tracks, organized a townwide protect our environment group, extended the argument for eight years. The rest of the town wasn't involved, but the abutter was determined. He ran for the select board and was elected. It's the equivalent of being elected really to the city council. He won. And he protracted this litigation for eight years, even after Eversource agreed to bury the wires so that no one would ever see them. Didn't matter to him at that point. They lost at every turn, but it did take eight years, millions of dollars in legal fees on behalf of the town. And in that case, Alicia, this guy was not interested in working things out. He was trying to kill the project. And he was an able political organizer who invoked every environmental consideration in the book in order to buttress his case. In the end, those environmental considerations were found to be wanting and a little trumped up, but he had quite a ride. So There's the gamut in terms of, I would say that would be an example of almost outright nimbyism masquerading as environmental protection. But on the other extreme, there are real cases where an environmental value is at stake. And then there's a lot of things in between. With regard to your other point, I'm torn. I'll be candid with you. It is a comprehensive permit. comparable to, roughly analogous to 40B, but you're right, it's politically toxic to say so. Tonight I chose to be honest, but I reserve the right to be dishonest in the future, depending on my mood. I'm just kidding a little bit, but I can appreciate that it's very volatile.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: It doesn't have to be dishonesty, it can be equivocation. You can say what it is, but not necessarily the negative aspects of it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, how would you, actually, let me ask, I'm serious about this, because I'm actually struggling with this, all kidding aside. How would you, to use Alicia's terminology, which is good terminology, how would you frame it in ways that was that was descriptive enough so that people could grasp what would be going on, but still not a turnoff.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: If I may, because it was immediately a turnoff to me, I have to admit. But I appreciate the idea of streamlined process with appropriate feedback from the community, appropriate opportunity for the local residents to have their say and bring up appropriate concerns. And focusing on that, because that should certainly exist in this, whatever it is. That should be focused on, because everyone should know that they have the right to say, this is an issue for me. For whatever reason they think that may be an issue, and maybe those issues are valid, and maybe they're more just nimbyism, but at least they could be voiced, and then it could be determined whether this is a valid concern or, you know, is this project actually not a good idea and shouldn't be in your backyard? Or is this project really something that needs to happen? Or can it be made better so that it is not impacting our community in a negative way?
[SPEAKER_09]: Nicely put. Thank you, Luke. That's actually, that's helpful.
[Barry Ingber]: Yeah, I agree with what Luke just said. And I also think, you know, borrowing a page from the right wing playbook to use the term cutting red tape.
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm sorry, is that so you're saying that that's a bad thing?
[Barry Ingber]: That's it. Let's cut some red tape for the right.
[SPEAKER_09]: And we should be able to use it to cut the road. I got you. I got it. Okay. Yes. I see. You're not pro red tape. Now. I understand your business. You're anti. Okay. I gotcha.
[Alicia Hunt]: If I might add, I'll just say that the term comprehensive permit is not toxic. It's when you say just like a 40B, that's when people's tackles rise. A comprehensive permit sounds like a good idea, right? Just don't compare it to 40B housing, especially not any, yeah, people don't like it.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, no need to say it.
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, good to hear. Thank you, this is very helpful.
[Martha Ondras]: What do you guys think about, oh, I'm sorry, go on. I would agree that 40Bs are absolutely hated. And they are also used as a threat to, in other words, you better work pretty hard on negotiating this project. Because at the end of the day, if we don't get what we want, we can always file for a 40B and get everything we want. But I think a lot of it is in your initial planning, if you're sensitive to. It's kind of like if you have to put a new highway or widen a highway. These days, not in the Eisenhower era, but today, you have to consider who you're impacting. And you have to run that. It sounds like you tried to run that transmission line on a right-of-way that was not on somebody's property or impacting a park or something. But generally speaking, it needs to be thought through to minimize the impact before you even get to the point of telling the community, this is infrastructure's plan for your community. And I think it's a terribly difficult thing. I have family members who live in the Greenfield, Northfield area who fight like hell against any wind farms, pipeline, anything, infrastructure that goes through the area. And they have some legitimate concerns. and some not so legitimate concerns. So I wish you well with this.
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_06]: Thank you. I would say the same thing. I think these are really difficult issues to balance. And sounds like you've got them in mind and you're doing the best you can with really, really tough issues. So I appreciate it. Thanks, Frank. Benji, my wife's name is on the... Oh, I see.
[SPEAKER_09]: What's your name? Benji. I'll close by saying that there are a couple of other things that I hope will enter into this omnibus climate bill that we haven't talked about. To mention them very briefly, I favor a ban on the sales by so-called competitive suppliers to individuals. I don't know if any of you are aware of that issue, but it's one thing for these big companies to negotiate with Medford on municipal aggregation. It's another thing for them to run young people through a training program and then send them door to door offering teaser fees at the beginning that wind up being balloon payments at the end. Do you agree with me, Barry, on that?
[SPEAKER_06]: Absolutely.
[Barry Ingber]: I've been on that issue since before deregulation happened, because we knew that that was going to be the result. And Yeah, I mean, it's it's a rip off. It's full of greenwashing. It's full of financial scams. It's it's awful practices. And yes, please put a stop.
[Brenda Pike]: We just had somebody come into our office last week who had been unknowingly put on to a competitive supplier that was six cents higher than our aggregation.
[Unidentified]: Well,
[MCM00001610_SPEAKER_12]: Would you keep competitive, would you still keep like, you know, competitive supply, but what would the bill do? And I say that coming from like a place where I completely agree with the premise. I think it's, the retail industry is scammy and horrible, but how would people be able to choose a supplier under what you're imagining?
[SPEAKER_09]: Good question. Municipal aggregation, would be the primary alternative in a city like Medford. And municipal aggregation doesn't exist everywhere in Massachusetts, but it exists in places representing about 70% of the population. The so-called basic service alternative offered to you and to your neighbors by Eversource or National Grid, whoever your electricity supplier is, could be better But interestingly, in 1999 or so, when we deregulated and Barry was thinking back to those days, we actually hobbled Eversource and National Grid. Everyone, including the utilities themselves, thought that competitive suppliers were going to take over the market because there would, well, be competition. They imagined, even the reformers imagined, most of them, Barry was more prescient than most, that the deals offered would be better deals than whatever source or national grid would offer you. So as a consequence, they actually constrained the utilities. Now we're in a situation where we need the utilities to be able to offer a product competitive with the so-called competitive suppliers, but it can't. Why can't it? because the competitive suppliers can take a look at the inflationary spike, for example, that happened this year and say, you know what? And it was running up last year. We're going to negotiate a two-year contract for electricity. We're going to try to jump over this period where electric rates are high. That's if they could have anticipated the supply chain disruptions. So we're going to negotiate. It's like negotiating a mortgage. Rates are still low. We're going to negotiate our deal now. It's going to extend for two years, will protect our people from inflation, and then ideally inflation will have subsided by the time we have to renew. That's what competitive suppliers can do. They can go short or long, depending on their reading of market conditions. But Eversource, is Eversource the electric supplier for Medford National Grid? We passed a law that says national grid, you can only negotiate six-month deals with the same suppliers, because the generators, electricity, whether they sell to the brokers who call themselves, by the way, a supplier is not a generator, the supplier is a middleman. So the generators sell to these middle guys who are brokers reselling to you, They're also selling to municipal aggregators, but the municipal aggregators can hire enough staff to figure out good deals. And they're actually selling to Eversource too. Eversource can only contract with them for six months, whereas Medford, through its deals, can buy long to protect its people and to keep prices stable. So part of the climate bill will rescind the requirement that National Grid can only contract for six months at a time. We'd like National Grid to operate under the same market conditions as Constellation Energy, which sells to Medford, but also sells to individuals door to door. It's just like the right to gas. There are these weird anomalies in state laws which have market distorting effects. So anyway, the long and the short of it is the House right now is going to opt to reform the competitive suppliers, which we've been trying to do for 25 years. I think it's time to call an end to the process. So does the governor. So does the Attorney General Campbell. We all agree that it's time to call the 25 year experiment to an end. What we would keep in its place is municipal aggregation to the same company. So we're not putting any companies out of business. And a renewed basic service, but with Eversource and National Grid as free to maneuver in the marketplace as the rest of the market players are. So in any event, here's another piece. Elon Musk last week, as you may know, laid off his entire EV charger division, top to bottom, the head of the division right down to the sales force. In one fell swoop, he had decimated the part of Tesla that has to do with addressing charger anxiety. That has thrown or will throw the EV charging market into turmoil. And I would like a climate bill to address all kinds of issues that have to do with getting that charger infrastructure in place, despite Tesla's erratic or Musk's erratic behavior. And to give you an example of how it could touch Medford, as you guys probably know, the city of Melrose next to you, has pioneered in right-of-way charging, essentially curbside chargers that are suspended on street lights. And once you work an app on your phone to send to ground level, enable you to charge your car parked at a regular parking space in Medford next to a meter. And then at the end of the charging experience, the device goes back up the pole so it's protected from vandals. So right of way or curbside charging is something that state law can facilitate. And there are a half dozen measures like that that I'd like to see included in the climate bill, because the idea is to stabilize and continue the deployment of charging infrastructure, even in the face, as I say, of Tesla's unpredictable behavior. My hope, and then finally, for those of you interested in waste reduction, I hope that a 2024 climate bill includes an enhanced model bill that covers many more containers and pops the deposit available from a nickel to a dime. You probably have curbside collection in Medford. They do in Lexington as well. But we also have folks who go, who turn, bottles back for the nickel deposit. Good for you. And we'd like to double the deposit and expand the universe of containers because we want to see single-use plastics reduced. So you begin to understand that this is a complicated multifaceted piece of legislation, potentially. I think the Senate will do everything I've just said. I can't vouch for the House. And that's why there's a conference committee where I will have to negotiate with my opposite member in the House, and we'll try to secure as many of these reforms as we can.
[Barry Ingber]: Senator, that all sounds fantastic. I would like to back up to the previous issue for just a second and say fine tune the idea of giving the electric utilities a free hand. As much as I despise the competitive marketers, I don't really trust the electric utilities either. And I wouldn't want to give them a free hand. I'd want to give them a requirement to obtain the best deal that they can for consumers.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, here's a weird thing about this market. The utilities make no money on supply. The way we wrote the law, and this is good, they make their money on construction projects. So the reason that siting and permitting gets even trickier than we've discussed thus far, and we don't have to get into it anymore, is because they make all their money, they get a statutory rate of return, it's about 9.75% on construction only. So they have every incentive to build more transmission. They have no incentive to gouge you on supply, In a deregulated market, the supply is actually generated New England wide by a bunch of no-name outfits owned by private equity companies these days. You've never heard of these companies. And in any event, their ownership involves layers of ownership. And the utilities make no money because they're not legally permitted to mark up what they pay for the electricity. They pass it on to you at cost. If they don't give you a good deal, if they are lousy at negotiating with these no-name generators, they make no extra money, but they piss you off. And they actually then create adverse circumstances to their making more money on construction. So they're motivated to keep the supply costs down so that the only thing that's going up is distribution, which is where they do make their money. Their interests are relatively aligned with the consumer's interest on the supply side, though not on the generation side. That's why the DPU regulates generation. And it's why I'm concerned about the siting and permitting thing. We haven't discussed these other issues. I want to make sure there's no overbuilding. But I'm not worried about the supply piece because that's not a profit center for them. And if we, I don't want to give them, I don't want to advantage them relative to the so-called competitive suppliers. I want them to play though on exactly a level playing field because their ability to procure supply is as good as the brokers who currently deal with the generators and negotiate with you on municipal aggregation. Those brokers have expert economists to figure out where the market is. Every source of national grid have the capacity to staff up too. And we haven't seen any instance where they've settled for an inflated price just because they're lazy and don't care on the supply side. The incentives seem to be relatively robust. Well, listen, I want to thank you guys for helping me out here. I really do appreciate the advice on semantics. And I'm a big fan of Medford. I've got two grown daughters who are living in Medford. One of them just bought a house in Malden. You're too expensive. You're too expensive. You're too pricey. So she went over. She defaulted to Malden. But we all love Medford. I really appreciate the feedback that you've given me. Thank you. Keep up your good work.
[Alicia Hunt]: All right.
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you, guys.
[Alicia Hunt]: Bye-bye. We really appreciate you taking the time to come and meet with the committee.
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, this was very enjoyable. It was good to meet you all. Now, remember, talk to Pat Jalen, who's already on the right side. Talk to your reps and have them talk to Jeff Roy about ending about barring competitive suppliers just from selling face to face to consumers who can't hope to match the information firepower the competitive suppliers can muster. The competitive suppliers will stay in business, but they'll sell to the city, which can now be a fair fight and a fair negotiation, but not to individuals in poor neighborhoods. So I hope we can get a little support going in the House for ending face-to-face individual sales by these competitive suppliers. Thank you very much.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: All righty. That was great. So I'm looking over our agenda. I want to make sure we leave room for any new business people want to bring up. But we are nearing the end of our session tonight.
[Lois Grossman]: God, we are so lucky to have him.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yes, I want to give a special thank you to Bob for setting that up at first, getting the ball rolling on all that was really essential, really incredible.
[Brenda Pike]: So there were a couple other things that I that I wanted to mention just for updates. The city, the Climate Equity Council meeting on the 22nd, we had Emma Twombly from the communications team with the city come and speak to them about methods that the city uses for outreach and. If that's something that is useful to this group, I can send along sort of the list of things that she talked about. And she asked for at least a two-week warning to push events out. And I also wanted to mention there was the state received a solar for all grant. That's that's going to be a pretty huge program, actually, and the funding for that was is likely to start this fall. But I know that there are some people on this committee who are really interested in, you know, trying to start up community solar projects. And so I think that's going to be a great way for funding for those to come through.
[SPEAKER_06]: That was it for my updates.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah, I think sending along the Climate Equity Council information is always appreciated. So with that, any other new business people would like to introduce before we wrap? All right, seeing none, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.
[Lois Grossman]: So moved. Second.
[Unidentified]: All right.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: Thank you.
[rov34HMcKiU_SPEAKER_27]: Yeah. Thank you. Great job, everybody.
[L5Dn-1_BzKM_SPEAKER_12]: That was a great meeting.