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Town of Lexington
Sustainable Lexington Committee
Minutes of Meeting of January 7, 2014
A meeting of the Sustainable Lexington Committee (SLC) was held on January 7, 2014
at Cary Hall. A quorum of four was present.
Members Present: Mark Sandeen, Chair
Rick Abrams, Todd Rhodes, Sheryl Rosner
Members Absent: Rick Reibstein, Dan Voss, Sarah Wilson
Other Attendees: Joe Pato, Mathew Pronchick
The meeting was called to order at 7:10 pm.
The minutes from the October 2013 meeting were approved.
Better Buildings - Residential
Mr. Sandeen and Mr. Abrams met with John Massy at Next Step Living (NSL) earlier
today to discuss the status of NSL activities;
They will meet with Joe Walsh of the Historic District Commission to establish a
program for improving the energy efficiency of historic homes.
Discussed whether mailings, using town envelopes, could be sent to Town
residents to encourage them to schedule a home energy assessment (HEA).
The Committee agreed that the Selectmen should determine whether the use
of Town envelopes would be appropriate.
NSL events that have been successful in signing residents up for HEAs include:
Hazardous Waste Day, flu clinic, Stop and Shop tabling days, Discovery Day.
Mr. Abrams will prepare an update of HEA status.
Better Buildings - Commercial
Mr. Rhodes provided an update on the energy audits conducted by AECOM/NSTAR.
From the 800 letters were sent to small businesses in town,
30 audits were completed
5 jobs are currently in construction
1 job was completed/invoiced
Mr. Rhodes has asked NSTAR to provide an aggregate summary of the projected
energy savings from the implemented improvements. NSTAR will provide the
summary when the current jobs are complete.
A second round of letters, including testimonials from the participants from the first
round is planned for after the current jobs are complete and we have one or two
testimonial to use.
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Other Initiatives
Mr. Sandeen led a discussion of other initiatives for the committee to consider. The
discussion of initiatives was based on our current energy use data that indicates that
56% of the TownÈs energy use is linked to residential (23%) and commercial (33%)
buildings, and that energy use is divided between electricity (36%) and heating
(19%).
Stretch Energy Code:
Mr. Sandeen spoke with Ian Finlayson (DOER) regarding plans to update the
Stretch Energy Code to 15% better than the current code.
Benchmarking
Bylaws could be amended to require both residential and commercial building
owners to make building energy data available to the Town to support analysis
of building performance and identification of opportunities for improvement.
Municipal Aggregation
Mr. Sandeen plans to work with Paul Chernick to set up a meeting with Pat
Goddard to discuss the benefits of municipal aggregation.
Reliability of the Grid
The committee discussed methods to strengthen power lines and issues related
to running underground lines.
Solar Energy Task Force
Mr. Voss is scheduled to present the Solar Energy Task Force RFQ to the
Selectmen on February 24.
Capital Projects
The committee discussed the challenge that it often is not aware of capital projects
early in the development of the project when there is an opportunity to address energy
efficiency or sustainability issues.
Mr. Sandeen will plan to meet with Pat Goddard, Maryann McCall-Taylor
(Planning) and John Wilson (Fire Chief) to discuss how best for the committee to
interact with these groups.
Mr. Pato will work to provide the committee with information related to capital
projects as he becomes aware of them.
The meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm
Respectfully Submitted,
Todd Rhodes, Scribe
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