2018-03-01-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

03/01/2018 AC Minutes Minutes Town of Lexington Appropriation Committee (AC) March 11) 2018 Place and Time: Parker Room, Town Office Building, 7:30 p.m. Members Present: John Bartenstein, Chair; Alan Levine, Vice-Chair & Secretary; Ellen Basch, Eric Michelson; Richard Neumeier; Sanjay Padaki; Andrei Radulescu-Banu; Lily Manhua Yan; Ran Helen Yang; Carolyn Kosnoff, Assistant Town Manager, Finance (non-voting, ex-officio) Member(s)Absent: None Other Attendees: David Kanter, Vice-Chair and Clerk, Capital Expenditures Committee (CEC); Mark Sandeen, Chair, Sustainable Lexington Committee; Mark Andersen, Town Meeting Member The meeting was called to order at 7:36 p.m. 1. FY2019 Budget issues • Article 35, Citizen Article, Resolution to Request Warrant Articles to be Accompanied by Financial Projections: Mr. Andersen,proponent for this article, used a handout to explain the purpose of the article and the current problems that would be addressed by this article, while identifying some of the details that have not yet been fully developed. The general concept is for Town Meeting members to receive a completed template for most financial articles that would increase clarity, consistency and efficiency. The article would be a resolution that would not be binding, but he anticipated that it would set expectations and encourage proponents to provide the requested information. During the ensuing discussion, members of the AC expressed support for the intent of the proposal but had some reservations about certain aspects of it,particularly related to implementation details. • Article 7: Appropriate for Advice and Analysis—Getting to Net Zero: Mr. Sandeen explained the following: The FY2019 appropriation request is the last of three requests for $40,000 each for this project. It is currently estimated that a total of$90,000 will be expended to complete the project, with the balance being returned to the Town. ➢ A consultant was used to generate a report on best practices for reducing building emissions. This report took as a starting point a similar report prepared by the City of Cambridge, at a much higher cost of approximately$250,000. In 2016, the Peregrine Group was contracted to prepare a Town energy inventory for carbon emissions, which was presented to Town Meeting in 2017. The next step is to continue to contract with the Peregrine group to develop an annual tracking tool for the Town energy inventory. Subsequently, opportunities for reducing carbon emissions will be reported to the Board of Selectmen (BoS). The objective is for the town to reach net zero emissions, not net zero energy use; it is expected that new building codes will eventually have to be put in place to require net zero emissions, but the effort to change building codes could take as long as a decade. 1