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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-02-24-SLC-min.pdfSustainable Lexington Committee Minutes of Meeting of February 24, 2026 A meeting of the Sustainable Lexington Committee (SLC) was held on Zoom. A quorum was present throughout. Members Present: Cindy Arens (chair), Todd Rhodes (vice chair), Andy Joynt, Dan Voss, Kavitha Venkatesan, Lin Jensen, Rick Reibstein, Kavita Ravi Members Absent: Celis Brisbin Staff Present: Maggie Peard Other Attendees: Ricki Pappo, Mark Sandeen, Joe Pato (SB Liaison) ————————————— SUMMARY OF VOTES: 1. IN FAVOR: The committee voted to recommend Peregrine’s proposal for re-negotiating Lexington’s CCA plan, replacing extra Class I REC purchases with national wind RECs, in order to offset rising costs from ISO-NE DASI policy changes. 2. IN FAVOR: The committee voted to recommend approval of the following 2026 Annual Town Meeting Articles: ● Article 7 - Sustainable Projects (Police EV chargers) ● Article 23 - Appropriate for Trash+Recycling Carts ● Article 31 - Amend “Regulation of Refuse Disposal” Bylaw ● Article 12(b) and (c) - Bike-Ped Plan Design Funds ————————————— The meeting was called to order at approximately 6:02 pm Approval of past meeting minutes. The minutes of November 25, 2025, January 20, 2026 and January 29, 2026 meetings were approved as written. Comments from residents; emails to committee mailbox; new business. ● Mass Energize is hosting their Climate Leaders Conference at Bentley University on April 8. ● House Bill H.5151 out of Ways and Means: good things in it like removing municipal cap on solar and not walking back on state climate goals but cuts MassSave by $1bn (this is BAD for the program objectives, for affordable housing and for jobs). Amendments are due tomorrow and the House will be voting soon thereafter. ● MVP 2.0: Public outreach for priorities begins in March, with a public meeting in May to select a seed project. ● Hazard mitigation plan update: Maggie will send SLC the draft updated plan when it’s available. ● Discovery Day is 5/23 Low-Income Community Solar Approved for Lexington CCA: The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) approved the Parallel Products low-income community solar program tie-in to the Lexington Community Choice Aggregation Program, a model now being adopted by other municipalities like Cambridge and Salem. Potential changes to CCA due to ISONE Day-Ahead Ancillary Services Initiative (DASI) Paul Gromer of Peregrine Energy presented. Electricity supply costs have increased due to the ISO-NE DASI (Day Ahead Ancillary Service Initiative) related to the recent extremely cold winter weather. The Town’s CCA supplier, First Point (provider) is going to be requesting a cost increase. Related point: Our default CCA plan includes additional Class I RECs and national wind RECs (Class I are 10x cost of national wind RECs) A shortage of Class I RECs were created because off-shore wind projects were stopped by the federal administration. So the purchase of Class I RECs are currently not promoting local renewable energy generation, which was the purpose of our default CCA plan. Peregrine recommends that Lexington renegotiate prices with our supplier for our default 100% Green plan and believe we can offset ISO-NE DASI increases by replacing Class 1 RECs with national wind RECs for 2026 (almost solves the DASI problem, not quite) and 2025 (only bought in Spring 2026). The latter brings more savings. Other municipalities like Newton have seen this issue and have also paused the purchase of extra Class I RECs. This plan should still keep default plan costs below current Eversource Basic rates. Those rates will reset in July/August and are expected to rise. Maggie needs to brief the Select Board and Town Manager in the coming days as Paul/Peregrine will need to engage with First Point by the end of March. Motion to recommend Paul’s proposal to the Select Board: Re-negotiate plan including pause of extra Class I REC purchases for 2025 and 2026 and possibly longer, until such time as Class I RECs regain value promoting local renewable energy generation. Seconded and voted unanimously in favor. Sustainability & Resilience Officer updates Waste Reduction Task Force - Provided an update on Articles 23 and 31, presented to Select Board last night, generally in favor, but have concerns about cost and impact. Recommendations to make the accommodations, e.g., mobility, medical waste, financial hardship. Senior ‘lunch and learn’ education event postponed to March 19. Started conversations with Capital Waste hauler. BEUD vs state Large Building Energy Reporting (LBER) policy data comparison - For high energy users building data is not matched to meters causing issues with accuracy of LBER data. BEUD has higher compliance than the state's, validating its value. SBC/High School - Integrated Process, Red List, VE list Todd provided an update on the last PBC-SLC joint meeting (Feb 12). Cindy asked questions about Red List categorization and timing of when SMMA/Turner would come back with clarifications. Noted that SLC continues to advocate for prioritizing avoidance of using Red List items based on exposure risk. PBC continues to keep solar+storage and Red List items on the Value Engineering (VE) list to maintain flexibility. SLC will attend the March 26 PBC meeting to ensure life-cycle costs (e.g., operational savings) are included in the new estimates due March 20. Position on ATM 2026 Articles: ● Article 7 - Sustainable Projects (Police EV chargers) ● Article 23 - Appropriate for Trash+Recycling Carts ● Article 31 - Amend “Regulation of Refuse Disposal” Bylaw ● Article 12(b) and (c) - Bike-Ped Plan Design Funds Articles 7 and 31 have been receiving some questions and opposition. Maggie presented to the Appropriations Committee on all articles and Commission on Disability on 23 and 31. There are concerns about the cost of Art 7 and about bin size and accommodations for seniors/mobility issues for Art 31. SLC should provide statements addressing questions and opposition. Noted that SLC previously voted to support Art 34 “Skip the Stuff”. Article 12 (b) and (c) are for approx. $280K to design better and safer bicycle access from bike path to LHS and create shared bike/ped path on Worthen Rd to promote more biking and increase safety. Plans would coordinate with LHS plans. Motion to recommend approval of Articles 7, 23, 31, and 12(b) and (c). Seconded and voted unanimously in favor. Kavita offered to help with writing the SLC support statement for Article 7. Cindy will draft a support statement for Articles 23 and 31. Both statements will be brought to the committee for a vote on March 24. The next meeting will be on March 24, and a joint meeting with PBC on March 26. The meeting adjourned at 8:10 pm.