Wednesday, October 27, 8:30-9:30 / Town Hall, Selectmen’s Room
Next Meeting:  November 17, 2010

Attending: Lyn Miller (chairing), Larry Litten, Marjorie Rogalski, Chris Soderquist, Mary Ann Cadwallader (secretary), Peter Kulbacki (Public Works), Chris Kennedy, and Julia Griffin (Town Manager).

Minutes:  September 15 minutes approved. 

Action Items:

• Chris K., Larry, Marjorie are meeting next Wednesday, November 3
• Lyn and Chris S. will address website items 2. banner advertising success, 3. how we want to be represented on the Town’s new website, 5. bar graphs showing before and after energy use of Town’s projects. 5. recording Celebrations and Challenges. 7. continuing their work on the NEGEF grant for the kiosks.

·      Lyn will write a 2 page description of Sustainable Hanover following Julia’s suggestion.

·      Lyn will speak at Rotary on 11/10/10

·      Lyn is working to get Valley News coverage and people to build tables 7 and 8 for the Naked Table event. 

·      Chris Kennedy will compile and show the carbon-footprint reduction of the improvements made at the Waste Water Treatment Plant.

• Julia Griffin will share her To Done list with Lyn.  Julia is it in your purview to ask Charlie Sullivan to redo the CPC Energy Audit of the Town as a comparison?
• Peter Kulbacki will get a summary from Kevin Mclean of the Waste Water project.

Discussion:
10/10/10 Events: Cedar Circle Farm event was beautifully done—good signage, hayrides. The conversation at Miriam Osofsky‘s home confirmed that there are a lot of interested people distributed among many organizations and faith groups.  For example, Lori Segal is doing an energy simulation at the Roth Center this weekend.

We need to clarify our message and find a messenger within each organization who can communicate about sustainability related issues. Then, we can funnel our message to these people who can bring it to their group.  When just a few people continue to communicate, the perception is that those few people will take care of whatever needs to be done.  Through her networking, however, Lyn has found two women to help, one at the Ray School and another with our website.

Streetlight Debrief:
About 80 people came to the policy meeting about turning off streetlights in specific neighborhoods around town.  Three quarters of those attending argued for keeping their streetlights and about a quarter were there to listen to arguments for and against. 

The larger group had many questions that weren’t policy related and couldn’t be answered at the meeting. If they are to be persuaded, it appears, more cost analysis and statistics on energy savings need to be generated. Concern was expressed that the Town be prepared to give information at hearings that show their research and that Sustainable Hanover be known to be on top of the results of Town expenditures.  Our job may also be to generate more personal responsibility for improving Hanover’s carbon footprint.

Julia spoke of Susan Boutwell’s research for her lighting story in the Valley News.  It’s a good example of the part the Valley News could play in getting the word out about other initiatives.  Anant Sundaram (at Tuck) told Marjorie that he’d help her create carbon footprint materials.  Because of his intense interest at the street light meeting, Marjorie will consider following up on his offer. In general, though, people think we can and will do all the work. Perhaps we need a list of what individuals can do to help the cause to pass out at meetings.

Sustainability Implementation Strategies (process conversation): 
1. February Meeting: We will invite folks with specific expertise to the public meeting we’re planning in February.  We need an event organizer for this event.  At our next meeting we should come up with a list of those to invite.  (I suggest that we work on this via email before the meeting.) We will limit the discussion of how to implement our vision to 3 or 4 action ideas so there’s more depth to the discussions.  We will focus the event so it’s productive to the Town.  The Meeting will also update the community on the progress the Town has made. For example, Ray School’s food composting will divert 9 tons of food waste from the Lebanon Landfill this year and the waste will be used by a farmer in Vermont. 

2. Banner on website: We will plan a banner or a list on Facebook or Twitter or the new Website to publicize accomplishments like the one at Ray School.  To this end, Julia will share her To Done list with Lyn.

3. New Town website: Sustainable Hanover will be asked for input on the new town website being orchestrated by the Virtual Town Hall (VTH), the largest municipal website in New England.  Sustainable Hanover will be noted on the main page and under Public Works.  We need to decide what links we want, etc. before the planning process begins.

The website will be rolled out 90 days after the end of the planning process and should be up and running next spring.  How will we keep our page fresh and connect to as many people as possible?  The other piece is HOW do you bring new people into the work?  People can subscribe to different topics.  Will there be a town mailing to introduce people to the new website?  Julia would like to do only one mailing a year and so this would be a part of a bigger mailing.

4. Pilot Projects for Website—Police HQ, Hanover Coop, Waste Water Plant: Chris K. is working on Police Headquarter’s energy efficiency improvement.  Bids are back for the audit which will give the estimated costs of improvements.   We have a NH grant for this work.  Documenting the goal-setting, process and results of this as a Town pilot project and then the renovation and expansion of the Hanover Coop as a commercial pilot project would provide a template for others. Doing the same for a residential project would also be important. Then we could point to examples of projects with documentation on Power Point or the website and say, ‘As a community we have a policy for energy efficiency and here are some models for achieving it’.  No one has volunteered to assemble this information.

Frank Austin is doing a presentation for ILEAD which could be used as a pilot or it could be described under the ‘Town Actions’ heading. He needs to develop energy savings statistics.  This seems to be what people are asking for at public meetings. 

5. Summaries of energy savings on website:
Julia suggested that we have 2 types of measurements. The first would be the average energy savings per streetlight, public works vehicle with idling control, etc. on Town efforts to reduce their footprint. The second would be a series of bar graphs comparing the before and after of energy efficiency improvements made.  How do we get this information into the neighborhoods?

The Waste Water Treatment Plant’s story should be recorded.  It was our worst offender.  Julia asked Peter to get a summary from Kevin Mclean.  Chris Kennedy will compile and show the carbon-footprint reduction of the improvements made at the Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Charlie Sullivan should redo the CPC Energy Audit of the Town as a comparison.  Link on the website.

Lyn wants to populate the website with information.  Our job is to compile the info. and articulate what we have done and what the challenges are. Action groups should focus on what the Town should do next.  She showed us an example of the Celebrations and Challenges Summaries she could link to the website. 

The tonnage from downtown restaurants’ recycling of food waste, the energy savings of taking our sludge to the Lebanon Landfill, rather than Maine, savings on LED fixtures on Ledyard Bridge and Main Street’s LED conversion.  (Allen Street’s LEDs were put in last summer and should be counted. Ballast and bulb have to be changed with these new lights.), Julia’s ‘To Done’ list could all be summarized here.  Grant funding should be noted.   

Lyn and Chris S. will collect and post this information.

6. Using technology for social networking:  The Town might want to sponsor a workshop for the community on social networking to launch the new website.  Laurie Shipulski and Bill Mlacak were mentioned in this connection. It would deal with how to navigate the website and contribute on the blog.  This could be recorded by CATV and reach even more people. 

7. Kiosk: New England Grassroots Education Fund (NEGEF) grant is pending.  Lyn will speak with NEGEF;  SHC should hear by the end of November.

8. Need for a 2 page introduction to Sustainable Hanover:  Julia suggested that we introduce ourselves to Hanover residents with a thoughtful 2 page document.  It would explain:  here’s why we’re worried, here’s why we care, and here’s what we all can do. 

Peter suggested that we use the clean water movement as a model.   Lyn agreed to put her hand to this.  Mary Ann will work with her. Chris and Lyn have been working on how to graphically represent the rationale and target for action.

9. Lyn is speaking at the Rotary meeting, November 10.

10. The Naked Table event Nov. 13, 14:  Lyn is working to get Valley News coverage.  She hopes the event will build interest as the Yard Sale did.  There was extra Hanover maple cut for tables that won’t be used.  It was suggested that the extra be sold to interested citizens.  There’s a wood shop at Dartmouth and another at Kendal where folks might be interested in buying some local maple.  The high school might also have a use for it, but some funds must be raised with it.

Encouraging and Calculating Residential Green Construction:  In the future we must talk with town staff about ways to use the permitting process to track green construction.  One way to encourage green construction is to raise permitting fees and give refunds for efficiencies. Permitting for the use of an alternative fuel like solar can be complicated but should be given a fast track so the homeowner isn’t punished for trying to be energy efficient.  We could develop a checklist for the homeowner to use when talking to an alternative energy or green builder.  Then, when the homeowner or contractor is getting the permits, they would have the answers.

Larry, Chris K. and Marjorie are meeting next Wednesday and may discuss this further.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Ann Cadwallader, Secretary