2021-06-08 Green Acton meeting
Participants: Jim Snyder-Grant, Debra Simes, Kim Kastens, Danny Factor, Debby Andell, Jiun Park, Mike Boss, Sue Jick, TF, Katie Raymond, Franny Osman, Carolyn Platt, Chris Edwards, Karen Watkins
AGENDA
• Housekeeping (tasks + welcome)
• Check-in Go-round
Katie Raymond is a civil engineer and works in Maynard with a company called Epsilon
Jiun Park is a rising Junior at ABRHS. She has been working on improving our Accomplishments page, and is looking for other ways to be involved in Green Acton.
Chris Edwards is interested in energy, and the swap shop & the repair cafe. Looking for a place to plug in to Green Acton.
• Committee reports: highlights only
Energy committee: reaching out to work with others on Acton Power Choice Green promotion. And reviewing warrant articles.
Land use: following proposed 67 PowderMill development, happy that it has been withdrawn for now.
Water: Meeting next Sunday. Members are measuring conductivity on local Fort Pond Brook for citizen science project with OARS. This helps measure salt and other contaminants. Particular focus is measuring levels that would be dangerous for fish. Following ground water protection bylaw changes.Regulatory system focused on PREVENTION. Board of Health is working on it, standing up to developers / engineers who wanted to weaken it. GA member advocated for adding an enforcement section to Article 11.
Plastics: close to final draft on polystyrene and single-use plastic reduction bylaw. Aiming for Fall Town Meeting. Working on establishing fee for checkout bags, also for Town Meeting in the Fall. Help enforce the bag ban by busting a local retailer
Materials: Working on Extended Producer Responsibility resolution to cover Mattresses, Paint, Electronics. Rob Gogan and Heather Haines taking the lead for now,
Acton Climate Coalition: working on Town Meeting, also following Climate Action Plan, progress on EnergizeActon.org, and providing support to the new renters / climate group.
• Questions + responses / open mic / comments & queries.
Community science hooray! Maybe add to mission page of GA website? But call it “community science” instead of “citizen science”
• Town Meeting articles: draft GA positions (if any), discussion + approvals (or not)
Energy: articles 13 and 14. One article to rule out new natural gas infrastructure, and one for home rule to allow this bylaw to be changed.
TF comment: home rule is hard. Other towns have put in clauses about “in case of a national emergency etc”… be prepared to offer this if it seems necessary.
Jim: Brookline’s bylaw, which was struck down for pre-emption, is very similar to Actons, and this (plus other towns) are trying to create pressure on the legislature to make this something that any town can do.
Article 15: PILOT for new solar facilities (Payment in Lieu of Taxes). Give the SB the authority to negotiate PILOT articles.
Danny: a possible addition to our statement.. We do want to streamline installing solar. BUT there was debate about whether the carbon sequestration loss of cutting down trees outweighs the carbon-emissions costs. Should a payment for trees be required? Jim thinks this warrant article isn’t the place to make this case, because article is only about a narrow topic.
Article 16: taking advantage of 2020 regulations, give credit on their electricity to low income people in town as an aspect of the solar array for .
Green Acton approved the three statements as drafted: Recommendations for 2021 Spring Town Meeting – energy committee
Reviewed statement by Water committee on article 5 asking for Independent review of analysis of future wastewater treatment plan studies. Language proposed:
DRAFT: Green Acton is not taking a position on this article, because at this point there seems to be no reasonable option other than to borrow this large amount of money and pay this expensive bill to remain in compliance with our MassDEP groundwater discharge permit. However, going forward, Green Acton recommends that the Town commission an independent review of the management, finances, and operations of the Wastewater Treatment system, to avoid the potential for conflicts of interest that are inherent in the present arrangement. The same contractor who has been taking funds from sewer users all these years for maintaining the system, who wrote the Comprehensive Plant Evaluation (CPE) required by MassDEP, who developed the detailed upgrade plan that was presented to the Sewer Board (aka the Select Board) and incorporated into this Warrant article… that same contractor stands to benefit financially by advocating for the most expensive possible upgrade.
Developing a slightly smaller statement to agree on, along with minor edits. Talking through change ideas. Final adopted text:
“Green Acton is not taking a position on this article. However, Green Acton recommends that the Town commission an independent review of the management, finances, and operations of the Wastewater Treatment system, to avoid the potential for conflicts of interest that appear inherent in the present arrangement. The same contractor who has been paid by sewer users all these years for maintaining the system, who wrote the Comprehensive Plant Evaluation (CPE) required by MassDEP, who developed the detailed upgrade plan that was presented to the Sewer Board (aka the Select Board) and incorporated into this Warrant article — that same contractor stands to benefit financially by implementing the upgrades.”
Water committee will keep pursuing the question of what the DEP actually reviewed, and what they actually said if anything about the CPE. If DEP has NOT reviewed the CPE or didn’t say that this work was needed, Kim will send off alarms and we’ll see if we need a brief emergency meeting or some such to agree on a stronger statement.
Landuse has some articles that we’d like to discuss, but have no consensus on making a statement at Town Meeting. (1) Article 12: The easement along strawberry hill road (2) Article 18 & 19: the planning board election citizen petition articles.
• Event/action announcements
July 13 GA meeting, 6pm(?) at Acton Arboretum; if weather does not permit, via Zoom; recognition of student volunteers. Bring your own chairs and bug protection strategies. Will include appreciation of high school volunteers.
• TRANSITION (checkout for those leaving)
ADMIN Matters:
• Committee budget requests due July 13
Notice: please all committees send in budget requests by July 13. We have spent no committee money this year. This request will also go to committee by email.
• Meetings in near future, digital v. real life:
> Admin/Org thinks committees can decide for themselves how/where; does this need more discussion?
Group was fine with this notion that committees decide.
> Future monthly GA mtgs: let’s take folks’ temperatures on where/how from Sept. onward (factors: dependent on COVID conditions; potential indoor venues; benefits of virtual and real-life meetings). When we do use Zoom, should enable digital participation. Hybrid option: digital, with quarterly meetings in real life.
Debby – when the weather is good, lets meet outside, Let’s keep the Zoom account active. Carolyn: let’s keep hybrid option open for remote participation. May just need to plan month by month. Danny: having remote participation is really helpful for many people, and important for our goals of diversity, participation and democracy. Organizationally, there are great advantages of meeting in person for everyone who can. Kim: hybrid can be tricky. There are facilitation and technical issues (good microphones, cameras, and screens), we would need to pay attention to doing this well. Kim has experience, Jim will talk with her to extract lessons.
• Checkout
Likes having the admin stuff at end, and actual content stuff earlier on.