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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-03-24-SLC-min.pdf Sustainable Lexington Committee Minutes of Meeting of March 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, Lin Jensen, Kavitha Ravi, Kavitha Venkatesan, Dan Voss, Celis Brisbin, Rick Reibstein Members Absent: none Staff Present: Maggie Peard Other Attendees: Elnaz Khosraviani (SustainbLY), Rahini Konakanchi (SustainbLY), Ricki Pappo, Joe Pato, Marcia Gens, Michael Boudett, Mark Sandeen ————————————— SUMMARY OF VOTES: 1. IN FAVOR: The committee voted to accept the statement in support of Article 7 to be read at Town Meeting. 2. IN FAVOR: The committee voted to accept the statement in support of Articles 23 and 31 to be read at Town Meeting. ————————————— The meeting was called to order at 6:04 pm. Approval of past meeting minutes. We did not approve the prior meeting minutes. We will approve them at the subsequent meeting. Comments from residents; emails to committee mailbox; new business. SLC discussed having a table at Discovery Day on Saturday, May 23 and decided we will not have one this year. Ricki Pappo discussed the new Programs and Communications Manager position that LexCAN is hiring. Ricki asked if we could pass along the posting and . The job posting can be found here: Programs and Communications Manager (Contract Position Description) SustainabLY Elnaz and Rahini updated us with their recent activities. They had a February presentation at Clark and Diamond middle schoolers, focusing on sustainable habits and in particular fast fashion. They made great connections with both teachers and students. They have a project in March 24, 2026 mind for April surrounding Black Earth and an effort to increase participation in composting. We discussed how there are 4,000 spots available for free town composting and that there are currently 200-300 spots left. Andy will connect them with some of the Sustainability Champions who are planning a field trip to a Black Earth site. Statements of Support for Town Meeting Articles 7, 23, and 31 We discussed Article 7 and the various ways in which we could reflect the savings that the town would realize in adopting this article. We would like to attempt to capture the savings specifically for idling and we will see how well we can capture that data. We discussed the current schedule for transitioning the police cruisers (and all other department vehicles) to EVs and the fact that we will realize savings the sooner we transition the fleet. We acknowledged the tension between accelerating the transition vs. keeping vehicles until the end of their useful life. We also agreed to move up content from the end of the statement to make our overall recommendation and opinion of the article’s benefits more prominent. The committee voted to accept the statement to be read at Town Meeting. We discussed the statement supporting Articles 23 and 31. Maggie clarified that we have some final numbers regarding rising costs that we can update (and they are close). Maggie clarified that the ability to procure MassDEP grant funding to offset procurement of bins can happen only if the Select Board elects to choose a bin size that aligns with MassDEP parameters. We further discussed how the potential program is still in the design phase. The committee voted to accept the statement to be read at Town Meeting. Joe reported that Select Board member Doug Lucente will be proposing a slight change to the bylaw language for Article 31. The purpose is to make clear that a baseline volume of trash will continue to be included in the program with no additional fee. Urban Forest Management Plan Steering Committee kickoff Lin and Kavitha R from SLC joined the kickoff. Lin told us that following an RFP, Davey Tree was selected and has begun a process to meet with residents and town staff. There is a big focus on public land and right-of-ways. An SLC member could also attend Tree Committee meetings as a liaison. Sustainability and Resilience Officer Updates Update on REC Purchases through the Community Choice Aggregation program The Select Board agreed to adjust the CCA supplier ’s purchase approach to reduce Class I REC purchases in favor of national wind RECs in order to offset rising costs from ISO-NE fuel supply policies. In addition, the Select Board elected to ask our consultant to approach the supplier on a contract extension for the CCA. The contract extension was signed last week to bring fixed pricing to the CCA through 2030. The new pricing structure is: March 24, 2026 ● 100% Green (default): $0.14733 (current through 2026) to $0.15415 (2027 through 2030) ● NE Green: $0.16389 to $0.17727 ● Basic: $0.13816 to $0.15226 There is an allowance in this new contract to move back to extra Class I RECs for the 100% Green option if we find that they return to being useful for increasing local renewable energy generation projects in the future. Basic Eversource supply rate is $0.156/kWh and is expected to increase by a good amount at the next rate adjustment period in Aug 2026. MVP2.0/HMP update: Beginning community engagement to identify Resilience Priorities and what are gaps in trusted information availability. Maggie asked for folks willing to participate in the process and suggested filling out this survey. May will provide survey results and begin engaging the community on seed project ideas. Neighborhood Electrification (aka alternative to GSEP): The Tufts group is in a community engagement phase with a meeting on April 7th at the Police Station and a survey going around. The group has received information on target streets at the end of the gas lines so they can focus on these areas for proposed electrification. The group also met with the integrated energy management teams at the local utilities, which seemed promising in terms of interest. There is also a resident survey on this. SBC/High School - Integrated Process, Red List Free, VE list The high school project's Red List Free compliance was recently added to the VE list quoting a $1.7M cost estimate from the design team (SMMA). The estimate is speculative, based on a perceived lack of competition among suppliers, not hard bids. This raises concerns about the VE list and the project's ability to meet the previously stated commitments (and IDP requirements) to avoid Red List Items, especially where building occupants have a high exposure risk. The committee will review the 50% design estimates at a joint meeting with the Permanent Building Committee (PBC) on Thursday with a primary goal to protect the solar and storage component from value engineering (VE) if the project is over budget in addition to maintaining Red List compliance as a core sustainability commitment. SLC will continue to advocate for a targeted, health-focused approach to compliance, not an all-or-nothing cut. Upcoming meetings: Mar 26 (Thur) - Joint PBC meeting Apr 28 (Tue) - Regularly scheduled SLC meeting. The meeting adjourned at 7:57pm.