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[Music] good evening and welcome back to buy line this is a public affairs show here at Amherst media and it's co-sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters and those of you who have been following the series know that this is our weekly visit to try to help you understand how our new town government is coming together and we bring people from the staff and people from the town council but we also bring people from some of the committee's that have been created by the council and some of the council committees are only members of the council but today we have a special treat because we've been doing the first interview with a committee that was created by the council that is a majority of townspeople and only a couple of town councillors and so this is a form of committee that is authorized by the Charter and as you know the Charter has a bunch of committees that the are only charter member excuse me only committee members town council members but they also have the authority to create special committees and today we're going to be speaking with the chair and the vice chair of the Energy and Climate Change committee and the chair we're gonna start with you is Laura drew terrific rocker see we plan this I've tried to figure out how to say this so I would get it right and don't you know I got it wrong Laura derocker is the chair and Andrew Rose which is also another interesting name and Erwin did Andrew come from Oh my mom had a student who had that name and we have no idea what the origin okay and so Andrew Rose is the vice chair of the committee so let's start with you and I like to start with a little bit of background so folks know where you came from and so tell us a little bit about your background how you got to town and how you this committee sure thanks Dan so I moved to Amherst almost five years ago it'll be five years on September 17th to take on the role as director of sustainability at Amherst College I moved from the DC area where I was working for an NGO called the World Resources Institute and I was working on greenhouse gas accounting standards and goal setting for corporations our team also did work with come with communities and other groups before that I was working at the EPA doing some energy system modeling so I was really sort of excited to come to Amherst to take on a role in higher ed where I could work on both operational sustainability but also work with students directly I really see students as sort of a scaling impact of what we can do with them here they can take out into the world and and we're seeing a lot of that right now with all of the youth action around climate change which is really exciting so you have a lot of background in energy and you're going to put that to work yes yep and so I'm happy to be able to sort of engage with the town in this way and Andrew you have been involved in climate change and energy stuff for a while I know you from a number of different places in that regard and you have a pretty deep connection with not only the subject matter but the effort to actually create this committee why don't you give us a little bit of of your backstory yes sure I've been in Amherst since 2002 and also moved from DC and I've been involved in a lot of climate activism helped start the mothers out front chapter here in Amherst and we were instrumental in passing 100 percent renewable resolution and the zero energy municipal building bylaw which passed in 2017 2018 but I also work on energy efficiency promotion with energy save a nonprofit that does education and referrals and helps residents to reach their energy saving goals and move closer to our clean energy future that we want and wasn't that started by Harold Grinspoon the philanthropist from Camden County yes yes that's a Grinspoon funded project great well and it's interesting that he took such a strong interest that he decided to help start this nonprofit and support it yeah it is really great so you folks are not in this alone you've got let's see how many three other community members plus two councillors so okay so who who were the other community members who were part of this so Jesse Salman who's an architect in town whose work is is you know very close to our our mission zero energy highly efficient buildings and Ashwin Ravi Kumar who's a professor at Amherst College in environmental justice Steve roof who's a professor at Hampshire College in the area of environmental studies and earth studies Nikki Rob who is a teacher and the farm program director at hearts Brook school Duane Prager was the director of the UMass clean energy extension I remember working with him when he was in the state government yes that's right yeah he came back to the University yes for 15 years who in the department of energy resources working on clean energy that's his thing yeah and and oh well no residue residents yeah yes two more residents or one okay remember so and there are two town councillors yep we have Evan Ross and Darcy Dumont yes Darcy was the lead author of the enabling legislation for the committee to form and Evan was the co-author terrific and you were part of those conversations as I remember as they were talking through what the mission and the charge and and all of that would be Laura why don't you tell us a little bit about the charge of the committee sure um the charge of the committee I mean really what we're being asked to do is help develop and then help make sure we're implementing goals to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and to be resilient and there's lots of really the charges very comprehensive and it lays out some really important things that the committee needs to do including but not limited to stakeholder engagement focusing on particularly under usually typically underrepresented communities and communities that are most vulnerable to climate change either through not Nash natural impacts or through cost increase and other things that will happen with energy costs and food costs and things of that nature you know I think we are have been tasked to work with other groups both inside the government town of Amherst government with other residents and businesses as well as other towns and communities in the state government and you know help to enact some of the bylaws that that Andra just mentioned like the hundred percent renewable resolution so yeah we are really I think our committee is really great we all have a focus on that larger goal and I think we all have an ambitious interest in really seeing how Amherst can thrive as a low-carbon to zero carbon community into the future and we have really healthy debates on how we get there and how quickly we can get there but it's really nice to be able to step back and say okay we're all sort of going towards this same same goal so this is a brand new committee how many meetings have you had so we've been meeting since late May about twice a week of course this summer was a little challenging with people being out but we have been able to meet quorum at every meeting and we have a meeting twice some every two weeks so quite regularly to get kicked off and I think the committee in some ways it's a bit of a unique committee because we don't I think only Nikki has been involved heavily and committees in the past so we have a lot of people that are new to town committees and we have a few people myself and Ashwin particular that are relatively new to the new to town yeah and so the meetings and discussions so far have been trying to sort through what it is you all understand to be your responsibility and then what steps presumably you're going to have to take in order to implement it so one of the concerns in the Charter is transparency and another is civic engagement and so there's a big focus in town on making sure that efforts that are established by the town basically find ways to be as transparent as possible so people know what you're working on and how the decisions are going to be made and then to also engage them in those processes so that they have a meaningful voice can you talk a little bit about what the committee is doing and how they see both of those aspects to ensure that the intent of the Charter is being carried out through the work of the committee yeah exactly I can see you know specifically two stakeholder engagement and transparency with our community I mean think that's a part of the Charter that's a part of the charge and that's something that we all take to heart particularly I think ensuring that we can reach these groups that otherwise aren't usually represented or don't typically come to some of the town forums and meetings that we have one of the things we're doing that I think is a bit unique is we're hosting a table at the block party next week where we're going to be trying to collect info from residents about their level of knowledge of climate change introduce them to our committee just get a sense of where they see barriers and opportunities to our transition away from a fossil fuel system you know what would they need to be able to cut their emissions from driving in half what would they need to be able to cut their heating you know systems or transition them to a renewable source so I think where the challenge lies a bit is that I think that intention is we we also have to back that up with with funding to do to do some of this work I think we actually Stephanie chicka Ella who's the town coordinator has done a really great job with the MVP program so this is I'm gonna mess up on the acronym municipal vulnerability planning yeah and so we've done the first vote what what how is climate change affecting our community so things like water rivers Brooks etc that could overflow and problems flooding insect borne diseases which we're seeing so ones that are happening in nature as a result of climate change can impact our community and so part of what you're trying to figure out is what are those vulnerabilities in our town exactly and she was able to through funding from that host events that included child care and food and translation and ways to reach a larger population so we're thinking through that as well into the future you know how can we as a committee get other grants to support that sort of even deeper outreach into our community and how I am a question I have is how the council we'll actually deal with that into the future because I think that traditionally committees don't have funding to do outreach but I think if we really are dedicated to that then I think we need to think about how we make that happen and so are there other things other than of having a table at the block party which by the way the date is yes thank you it's the 19th September so we're not sure when the show will be broadcast but if the show is broadcast before the 19th you know there's a block party if it's after you know what you might have been and but there gonna be other opportunities so what else might be happening in the nature of outreach that the community should be watching for well we're gonna be doing outreach we hope it never ends really but we're starting out with two phases and the first phase is just starting with the block party and with interviews that we're going to be doing with as diverse a group of people one on one or in small groups and that something we'll be doing in the next month and then we also have two forums scheduled and they are October 2nd at the Bank Center at 7 p.m. and October 5th at the Jones library downstairs at 10 a.m. and the purpose of those forums is and the format will be it would be very the information gathering or the information giving definitely gathering yeah will be very indirect this is an opportunity to provide input to the committee yes that's right exactly and at the community block party if folks can see this before then that's more in the nature of making people aware of the committee yeah some of your outreach will be making people aware and some of them will be capturing their ideas and their vision we actually have a fun sort of pop quiz there's going to be electronic Jesse Salman has set this up where people can answer you know five or six questions and then it'll be visualized you know how many people were in different you know answered the same way or different on a big screen on the table so will will actually be out there in the street without asking your knowledge and other things so we've got some forums and some public exposure and yeah and this is really just phase one so what we're trying to find we're trying to make ourselves known we're trying to make it known that we want to be actively engaging in outreach and transparency with our community as Andra said throughout the process you know there's going to be we kind of have a sense you know we the science tells us what we need to know so in some ways that our job is easy we know what our large overarching goals have to be to meet to be inline with science what's gonna be the challenge for us is figuring out you know what that how does that translate into action in town and how does that translate into what we can do as Amherst to lead but also how do we lead by engaging in collaboration and collective action with other towns with the state government like I think specifically about public transportation funding constantly a challenge but that's gonna be a huge part of any town in Massachusetts particularly in Western Mass to make progress on climate action goals and climate does not stop at town boundaries exactly these problems and these issues cross boundaries it's their boundaries are irrelevant from the point of view of those kinds of problems and the solutions will require a lot of collaboration and that means cooperation and collaboration not just from the government that's so you're going to be trying to engage the citizenry yeah business isn't absolutely we want to have developers and small business owners Realtors you know in on these discussions right from the beginning that's clearly going to be a important part because amherst town government has already reduced their emissions in the build their buildings a lot because we've been a green community for a long time and those those funds have in the past always gone to you know decreasing municipal energies and so now we not including the institutions it's it's all the residences and businesses that we have to find you know solutions that are both just and financially feasible and and that's one of the reasons that the committee's interested in this other work that's been going on with Community Choice aggregation it's sort of right now to parallel um projects for those who may not be familiar give two sentences on choice aggregation it's a state based program that allows us to combine our electric use and purchase the supply so we can choose our source locally and the Amherst Northampton and Pelham have begun I was a part of starting this and there's a task force working on you know can we do this together and you know that will both influence and support the work that the committee is doing to come up with solutions and in the nature of small world I actually was the author of the provision in the utility deregulation bill that allowed communities to aggregate so excited because I've been trying to I had been when I in office trying to encourage more communities to do it and it was being done through our county government which as you know has fallen on hard times and is in the process of going out of business but that was one of the brilliant things that they did was they did some aggregation and it was going very well but we needed more communities to engage at the community level so thank you for doing that work that's fantastic so in the few minutes that we have left let's focus on a couple of more ideas of the kinds of things just so that the people who are watching can understand the nature of what an individual community could do either together or with their neighboring communities you mentioned public transportation there must be other areas that communities can do to make a difference so that they can reduce their carbon footprint well one thing we know that Amherst's actual emissions are dropping the bucket what what's important about this work is the potential to come up with innovative programs and solutions that can roll out to other municipalities can effect the state and as goes Massachusetts so goes the nation so we feel like it's our responsibility to can get out and be creative because we have these amazing resources in Amherst so the community try segregation is an example that's that's already maybe you know possibly feeding into the work but we have research happening in mass on storage which is going to be a big piece in the future so if you have your own power generation capacity whether it be solar or windmill or anything that generates power but you can't use it all it's got to go somewhere and right now if you can connect up to the utility you can feed your excess power into the utility grid but storage is another option because you'll be able to keep it on-site be able to keep it and use it later when you don't have enough coming in from your alternative energy source other examples I mean I think we're seeing the colleges and other community members and businesses look to heat pumps and ground stars heating I think heating is a real challenge and so I think identifying and partnering with organizations that are providing their rebates and the opportunities for transition of heating systems I think another area we flagged as being an area of challenge for us is landlords and renters and making sure that the renters are not being burdened which many are with high heating cost because landlords aren't motivated to necessarily keep buildings up to to the best energy efficiency standards so looking at ways that we could support that or help drive drive air drive action there so really thinking about you know there's globally what we need to do and then there's things that are specific to Amherst what makes Amherst unique our student population our location our partner communities and the dates so the energy and climate action committee our job is to recommend and to provide resources and ideas and so you know I I I think that but also take ideas from the community for instance the high school students have already been promoting the idea of having solar canopies on the parking lot you know like we have at the UMS parking lots and you know who doesn't like to have their car parked in the shade we could integrate it with electric car chargers and I think the idea of integrating systems so that we have solar where it's being used when the sun is shining and can reduce our overall draw from the grid with clean energy instead of the you know pretty dirty energy that's on the grid right now yeah just imagine X number of years down the road every parking lot in town public colleges churches shopping set every one of them having solar canopy and storage on-site yeah and using the power that's coming off those canopies to power the buildings next to the parking lots and storing the power for the times when the Sun is not out to continue to power so a lot of imagination a lot of visions can come together through the work of the committee do you have some key milestones we should be watching for are there going to be like multiple reports on some schedule that you're working out one big report by some date certain I'm going to assume we're gonna have some public policy debates at the Town Council at some point so give us some some thoughts about the milestones in there in the final minute yeah so I mean I think we you know we don't want to get too ahead of ourselves our first milestone is really we are going to be going back to the council at some point in November December to report on our first phase one of community outreach and to sort of kind of person our initial high level goals and again we were really thinking about these being based in science so have 50 percent reduction by 2030 looking into carbon neutrality but we have to be very flexible because you can just see in the like in between the time the charge was created and our committee started was the green New Deal so we don't know what will happen so I think that's an interesting challenge of our of our committee to stay on top of but that's the biggest milestone to start so these events the block party in the forum's on the 2nd and the 5th of October and we will have those up to date on the town website and the Facebook and things like that and then from there yeah we will need to set some specific goals and targets which may come in the form of a report they may be small policy briefs we haven't gotten that far yet great well on the good news is that the state is in the process the state legislature and governor are working on legislation and they're looking at trying to put in excessive a billion dollars into play for helping communities set up their resiliency and adaptation implementation not just the planning now but now going to implementation so the grant that Stephanie got that set the stage and created some baseline understanding of what's going on in town that we should be trying to impact there will soon be money available from the state help our community do that kind of work and will be applying for that yeah I'm sure you will and so we have a lot of people to thank for this Darcy and Evan are two counselors who took the lead the rest of the council that supported it and you Andra and you Laura who have taken the leadership of this nine member committee and all of the other committee members thank you for doing this work and so those of you watching keep keep your eye out for opportunities to participate in forums and hearings and discussions so that you can have your voice heard as this important work goes forward and so thank you for being with us and thank you and we'll see you again soon [Music]